


10AM, Wednesday Morning.

by risky_business



Series: 10AM, Wednesday Morning. [1]
Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes, Panic! at the Disco, The Academy Is...
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Alternate Universe, Angst, Barebacking, Bathroom Sex, Break Up, Cheating, Deepthroating, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Implied Underage, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Infidelity, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, School, Sex, Sex Tape, Teaching, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-09 09:20:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 58,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/risky_business/pseuds/risky_business
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Jon is fired from his job as a teacher at the most prestigious Catholic school in Chicago after one of his pupils discovers a video of him sucking dick online, but that's the very least of his worries when his boyfriend of six years turns to him in the car one day and tells him their relationship is over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Dude..." William Beckett stood with his hip angled, his hand against his front door frame. “Really? When?”

“Just now, man. What the fuck?” Jon Walker stood on William’s steps, and directed his words out into the mid-morning Chicago air, his breath fogging. He looked out at the street, half expecting to see Patrick’s car turn around the corner and pull up in front of William’s house. He sighed and turned back to his friend. “Can I come in?” 

William stepped back into his house and Jon followed. He took off his scarf and his unbuttoned his coat. 

“So, what did he say, he just ended it?” William leant against the bannister and folded his arms across his chest. Jon couldn’t really look at him. 

“Yeah.” 

“Just like that? Did he have a reason?” 

Jon let out another sigh and shrugged his shoulders. His eyes met William’s and he quickly looked away. He picked the dirt from under his thumbnail and swallowed; trying to process his current situation. 

“He said it had been a long time coming; that I’d changed since losing my job.” 

William scoffed and then rolled his eyes. “Dude…” There was a beat of silence. “That sucks. I’m sorry, man.” He pushed past Jon and walked towards the kitchen. “D’you want a coffee?” he called. 

 _I need a fucking whiskey_ , Jon thought. “Yeah,” he answered. “Fuck man, it’s just been one thing after another. I lose my job, Patrick’s fucking leaving me… I’m gonna have to go live back with my mom, dude.” Jon sat down heavily on a kitchen chair and put his head in his hands. 

“You can crash here if you want.” William offered, with his back to him. 

“Thanks.” 

“So… wow. I can’t believe that, man.” 

Neither could Jon. He blinked at the pattern in the linoleum and bit the inside of his lip at William’s next question. 

“How long were you together?” 

“Six years.”  

“Jeez… You told anyone else?” 

Jon shook his head. “Can I bum a smoke from you?” he asked. 

“Packet’s right there, man, help yourself.” There was silence. “So, what’re you gonna do?” 

Jon shook his head and inhaled on his cigarette. “Move out of the house, I guess.” 

 _What the fuck_ was _he going to do_ , he asked himself. His hands were shaking. He was jobless, boyfriendless and homeless… Stupid little thoughts kept popping into his head – _those records are going to be hell to move. What about the apartment?_ _My mom’s going to be devastated._

“Was there anyone else involved?” 

And that was the other thought that had been looping through Jon’s mind since Patrick turned to him at a red light and dropped the break-up bombshell. 

“Fuck, man.” Jon straightened his back and looked somewhere just left of William’s eyes. “I don’t know.” 

“Didn’t you ask?” 

“I did, he said there wasn’t, but…” he finished with a shrug. 

“Dude, I’m sorry. That really sucks.” 

Jon shrugged again and stubbed out the last of his cigarette onto a dirty dinner plate. 

“My head hurts, man, you got any Asprin?” 

“Somewhere around,” William replied, rooting through the cluttered mess on his kitchen table. “It’s been a shitty year for you so far, huh?” 

“No shit,” Jon said. He reached again for the cigarette packet and pulled one out. “No fucking shit,” he repeated, placing the cigarette between his lips. 

“Here.” William handed him a small box of painkillers and Jon rolled three out into his palm. He lit his cigarette, took a deep drag and exhaled slowly. He popped the pills into his mouth and washed them down with a slug of lukewarm coffee. 

“I need to clear my head,” he said, getting to his feet and running his hand through his hair. “’S’okay if I crash here tonight?” 

“Dude, of course it is.” 

Jon paused and nodded and then sighed. What the fuck was he going to do, and where the fuck was he going to go? He kept repeating Patrick’s clichéd sentiments in his head; _it’s not you – you’re great – it’s me. I love you, I just… I just don’t think we work as a couple anymore. You can leave your stuff at the house, ‘til you figure out a new place._

_Gee, wow. Thanks, man._

He flashed William a reassuring smile that didn’t reach his eyes and then turned back out into the hallway. 

“Give me a call – if you need anything,” William said from behind him, gripping Jon’s shoulders with his bony fingers. Jon nodded and buttoned up his coat, draping his scarf around his neck. “You want me to come with? We can grab a couple of forties.” 

“Dude, it’s 10AM on Wednesday morning – and my boyfriend’s just broken up with me. If I start drinking now, by the time he gets out of school, I’ma be calling him up, crying down the phone.” 

William’s lips made an effort to smile and he offered Jon an awkward pat on the shoulder. 

“Well, you know where I’m at. If you change your mind.” 

“Yeah. Thanks.” He brought his almost burned out cigarette to his mouth and turned towards the door. “Don’t go telling everyone. Not yet.” 

William rolled his eyes. “C’mon, bro. You know I wouldn’t.” 

Jon looked up into the grey skies. It had started to rain so he flipped his hood up and leant down to extinguish his cigarette in the ashtray on the top step. 

Jon didn’t look back. He climbed into his car, waved out the window and drove two blocks, before pulling into a McDonald’s parking lot. He sat there for an hour before sending Patrick one text message. 

_Please don’t tell me you’ve been fucking Pete._

* * *

  

Jon got fired from his job the first week back after the Christmas vacation. He was a science teacher in a prestigious Catholic school in the center of Chicago and he’d been teaching there since leaving college. It was his first teaching gig and it paid bank, but he’d never really been teacher material. 

Jon loved to get fucked up and when you’re trying to hold down a well-paid job as a responsible adult, the two don’t always mix well. The people he partied with were always so surprised when they found out he was a teacher, especially in such a good and well-respected school. He loved drugs and booze and come 3PM on Friday afternoon, he was always hell-bent on spending the weekend getting high. 

During the final week before Christmas, Jon had been called into the Principal’s office. Jon knew why and had almost just got into his car and driven home. He sat alone in the office, feeling how he used to when he was a kid. He was always being sent to the Principal when he was in school and it had never really bothered him, but now he knew that feeling of dread all too well – because he was in deep fucking shit. 

“Jon,” the Principal greeted him warmly and sat behind his desk. “Prepared for the Holidays?” he asked, opening a folder out in front of him and ticking some boxes, signing his name at the end. The Principal was called Frank Daly – he was an old, greying man with a protruding belly. The female members of staff all said he was a creep. 

“Yeah. Just,” he answered, leaning back in the chair. 

“Good. So… I think you know why you’re here… Do you care to explain?” Jon blew his breath out through his mouth and shrugged. “The video is all over school, Jon. We’ve had parents’ complaining, saying they’re worried about you teaching their kids.” Frank looked over his glasses at Jon and pursed his lips. 

The video in question was a two and a half minute video of Jon sucking Patrick’s dick. They were both high on cocaine when they filmed it and although Patrick’s face remained hidden, there was no doubting that the man on the screen was Jon Walker. It had been filmed three years prior and uploaded to a free porn website a few months later – the video had been forgotten about until approximately seven days ago when one of his students had found it online and forwarded it on to his friends. 

“You realize you have a certain responsibility as a teacher in this school, Jon? I had Martin Reed’s mother in here this morning, claiming she wants to pull her son out of your class.” 

“I’m gay, I’m not a pedophile,” Jon defended himself, offended. 

Frank shrugged. “We’re a good school and we have to uphold our students’ religious beliefs and a lot of their families don’t agree with your,” he searched for the correct word, “lifestyle.” 

“Well, dude, you can’t fire me for being gay.” 

“Jon, I don’t care if you’re gay, straight or what, but people are angry – staff too, and we can’t have a video like that of one of our teachers floating around. It’s a distraction for the students and I hate to tell you this, but Victoria Dunne’s mother has started a petition to get us to take action against you.” 

Jon sighed. “Frank, the video was filmed _years_ ago. It’s got nothing to do with school _or_ my teaching ability and I really hope you’ll stand by me because I can’t lose this job. I’ve got bills, man.” 

Frank splayed his hands and shrugged his shoulders. “We've all got bills, Mr. Walker. We’ll discuss this again after the Holidays, but Jon – it’s not looking good for you. We have a reputation to uphold.” 

“How about you talk to those kids who printed out those screenshots, man? How about you speak to the kids that shout that I’m a fag when I walk down the hallway, hmm? Why should they get away with that? Victoria Dunne’s mom wants to fuck up my career, because I made a video, what, three _years_ ago?” 

“I’m sorry, Jon,” Frank said, not sounding very sorry at all. He ticked and signed a few more papers and then closed the folder in front of him. “We’re going to arrange a meeting with the school committee after Christmas. We’ve already arranged cover for your classes for the rest of the week, so you can go home and we’ll see you at the beginning of next year.” 

“That’s fucking _bullshit_ ,” Jon spat, making no effort to move from his chair. 

The Principal looked up at him pointedly from behind his thick spectacles, and tilted his head to one side. “You should leave.” 

In his youth, Jon would have stood up and slammed his fists against the Principal’s desk, but instead, he just sat there, fighting against the anger that was racing through his blood. 

“I _need_ this job,” he said. Begged. 

“You need to go home and think things over.” 

Jon rolled his eyes, hauled his body out of the chair and headed towards the door. When he got back to his car he immediately lit up a cigarette and pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket. 

Two messages, both from Patrick. 

 _How did the meeting go? X_

_Dude, Travis got that mdma he was talkin about. Said he’d cut us a killer deal if u drop by his after work._

Jon threw his phone down on the passenger seat and turned on the heating. He sucked on his cigarette and cracked the window, thinking about his conversation with the Principal just now. He was going to lose his job and if Patrick found out, especially this close to Christmas, he would flip his shit. He stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray and started the ignition, with no real idea of where he should drive.


	2. Chapter 2

Two days later, Patrick called Jon. He hadn’t responded to Jon’s text and nor had he answered any of Jon’s calls. After a few failed attempts, Patrick’s phone stopped ringing and was forwarded straight to voicemail. Jon gave up, because he couldn’t deal with the fact that Patrick had ignored the question that had been plaguing him since Wednesday – _have you been fucking Pete?_

Jon had slept on William’s couch for the past two nights. He still hadn’t plucked up the courage to call his mom and tell her the news and last night had given into the thing he promised himself he wouldn’t since Patrick turned to him in the car, bit his lip and said: _I’m sorry, but our relationship’s over. You know that._

He’d taken cocaine and hadn’t slept in almost twenty hours. He’d wrestled with all the negative affects of the drug – the tremors, the anxiety, the restlessness - and was on a slow, miserable comedown when Patrick’s name flashed up on his cell screen. 

He let the phone ring, sat at William’s kitchen table with a blanket around his shoulders and his hand wrapped around a half-empty mug of coffee. He smoked and turned his cell phone facedown on the table. Patrick’s caller ID photo made his stomach twist in angry knots. 

Patrick’s voicemail was long and rambling and he listened to it three times before sending him a text consisting of one lone question mark as a reply. 

“Hey. Jon,” Patrick cleared his throat. “Uh. It’s me. Patrick. I, uh… I think that we need to meet up and talk about things, y’know? Umm.” There was a long pause. “Shit, man. Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you like that. I know you’re pissed, but I didn’t want to end it that way, I have just been _so_ stressed out lately and you know; _money_. It’s been real tough, but I think we need to talk things over. I really hope you’re not too mad at me. We had such a great run, but everything with the video and then you losing your job and you got so depressed and you can’t just smoke pot all day and expect a new job to fall into your lap, it doesn’t happen like that. But, anyway… I’ve had some time to think things through and all your shit is still here waiting to be packed up and I don’t know what you’re doing for clothes or whatever, but I’ll either drop them off at your mom’s house or you can come pick them up this afternoon after I get off work. Uh. Well, whatever you do, don’t get too fucked up. Gimme a call back – or don’t. Whatever.” Another pause. “Call me.” 

Jon heard movement from William’s bedroom upstairs and clutched his cell phone in his hand, waiting for a reply. He inhaled on his cigarette and wondered why Patrick was being such a hostile little bitch in his voicemail. 

 _Meet me @ Starbucks on W. Taylor at 3.30. Got sum of ur stuff in my car._

Jon dropped his phone down on the kitchen table and sunk his head into his hands. _Don’t get too fucked up,_ Patrick had told him. Jon looked around at William’s cluttered mess of a kitchen and sighed – no job, no house, no Patrick… crashing on the couch of his slovenly best friend at twenty-seven years old. What else was there to do but get fucked up? He stubbed out his cigarette as he lit up another.

 

* * *

 

Jon didn’t want to be here. It was raining and it was colder than average for April. He hung around outside with his hands in his coat pockets, hoping for the love of god that Patrick wouldn’t stand him up. He was under slept and miserable; a hopeless combination. It was a Friday, his favorite day of the week, but he felt like shit. 

“What’s up?” Jon spoke first, the words rolling out of his mouth lazily. He nestled his chin down into the collar of his coat and wondered how Patrick managed to look like he usually did – good. 

“Hey.” Patrick flashed a small, sympathetic smile and jerked his eyes towards the entrance of the coffee shop. “D’you wanna grab a drink, it’s freezing.” Patrick spoke like this situation wasn’t even unusual. Jon half expected him to loop his arm through his to try and preserve a little body heat. Jon shrugged and walked through the door that his ex held open for him. 

“Tall black?” Patrick looked towards him and asked. “Go and grab a table.” 

Jon sloped towards an empty table in the far corner of the room and sat down. He didn’t want to be here, because he didn’t want to hear what Patrick had to say. 

“How’ve you been?” 

Jon looked up as Patrick sat down and then quickly dropped his eyes back to the table. 

“Shitty,” he admitted, pulling his coffee towards him and staring down into it. 

“Yeah. Me too.” Silence. “Are you staying with your mom?” he asked, taking a sip of what Jon knew was a skinny decaf vanilla latte. 

“At Bill’s,” Jon looked up at Patrick’s face, but decided to focus on the café behind him. Patrick’s eye-roll didn’t go unnoticed by Jon. 

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said. “I still want to be friends.” 

Now it was Jon’s turn to roll his eyes. He brought his coffee to his lips and took a sip, staring around the café at the busy baristas; the college kids sat alone typing away at their MacBook’s, the mother who was struggling to push flatbread into her young daughter’s mouth – anything that distracted him from the man in front of him. 

“Jon. Look at me.” Jon looked at him. “I’m sorry. It’s been hard.” 

“Yeah, no shit. I know it’s been hard – all the kids in school saw my mouth around your dick; I got fired and it’s going to be really fucking hard for me to find another job – and you’re breaking up with me, why, because it’s been _hard_? Dude,” Jon whispered, “We’ve been together six years, does that not matter to you?” 

“Of course it does,” Patrick defended himself quickly. He looked around the café, desperately and then back at Jon. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish for a few moments and then took a deep breath. “There’s someone else.” 

Jon could have thrown his coffee straight in Patrick’s face. _Someone else._ His absolute worst nightmare was coming true in a Starbucks at 3.30 on a Friday afternoon. 

“Who?” Jon snapped, his arms folding across his chest, his legs splayed out in front of him. 

“We didn’t even hook up properly, not until you and I broke up, anyway-” 

“Until you and I broke up? So, what, _two days ago,_ man? What the _fuck_?” Jon stood up and then sat down. He turned his body diagonally in the chair and was suddenly very aware of the heart inside his chest. “Who was it?” 

Patrick was silent. Jon glared in his direction and waited for their eyes to meet. The man opposite him looked away guiltily. 

“Pete?” Jon asked. 

Patrick’s eyes fell away from his face and Jon huffed out a deep breath, fixing his own eyes on the opposite wall. 

“Fucking hell, Patrick,” Jon mumbled, slowly shaking his head. “How long was that going on?” His question was met with silence. “How long?” he repeated. 

“A few months,” Patrick croaked. 

Jon squared his jaw and imagined Patrick – _his_ Patrick – getting fucked by Pete Wentz. His lips twitched. He needed to get away; he wanted to get horribly, achingly fucked up. How was Patrick so sure, he wondered? Why was he ending their relationship on the basis of a fling? What had _he_ done wrong? Pete was a fucking dick _and_ he was a player. He’d tried to put the moves on Jon when they first met. He wondered if they’d fucked without a condom. The café was suddenly very warm. Jon was burning up. 

“Money for the coffee,” Jon dug into his pocket and counted out a couple of dollar bills onto the table. “I’ve gotta get out of here.” 

“Jon. Stay,” Patrick pleaded, getting up out of his seat. “I didn’t want it to be this way.” 

“Well, maybe you should have thought about that prior to jumping into bed with someone else. I mean, what the fuck were you thinking?” He lowered his voice, taking a small step towards Patrick’s frame. 

“I wasn’t thinking.” 

“You weren’t thinking for, what, two, three, four months? How long _is_ a _few months,_ anyway?” 

“A few months. I don’t know exactly how long. After New Year,” he explained, his brow furrowing. 

Jon shook his head and tried to process this information. It was late April. Four months his boyfriend had been fooling around on him and four months Jon had shared a bed with a cheat. He remembered all those nights out Patrick had been going on – with work friends, lunchtimes that he was too busy to meet up for coffee, that weekend at his sister’s in Cincinnati that Jon hadn’t been invited to… He’d been played for a fool. Jon felt like smacking himself with an upturned palm hard between the eyes. _What an idiot,_ he scolded himself. 

Jon turned and made an exit towards the door. He needed fresh air, his head was beginning to spin. Either that or he was going to throw up. He stopped outside on the sidewalk, almost being knocked down by a careless mother and her stroller as he attempted to pull his cigarettes out of his pocket. Jon snapped an angry, _look where you’re fucking going,_ in her direction and lit his cigarette with a shaking hand. 


	3. Chapter 3

Jon hadn’t felt this angry in a long time. He’d been a furious child, always getting into trouble, but he’d leveled out into a calm adult. He tried not to let things faze him and most of the time, they didn’t, but right now, he could’ve smashed Patrick’s face in. 

He returned back to William’s house with a tight heart. Gabe’s car was parked outside and Jon paused on the steps wondering if he should just go to his mom’s house and tell her the news, because Gabe was kind of loud and brash and Jon wasn’t sure he wanted him knowing his business. _Fuck that though_ , he thought, his mom would only worry herself silly. She’d probably try and stick up for Patrick. Sometimes Jon wondered if she liked Patrick more than she did her own son. 

He pushed his way in through William’s door, past the living room where he and Gabe were sharing a joint and locked himself in the bathroom. He couldn’t look at his reflection in the mirror and he swore under his breath, trying to organize his thoughts. 

 _Patrick had been fucking Pete for four months_. He couldn’t wait until he saw Pete next; he’d always wanted to punch that smug, shit-eating grin off his face and now he had a reason. The small bag of coke that he’d bought from Travis last night had been burning a hole in his pants pocket since Patrick admitted his infidelity. There wasn’t much left; only another couple of bumps, but he pulled the little plastic bag out of his jeans and stared at it. 

“Are you alright in there?” William’s voice from the other side of the door made him jump. Jon couldn’t even form the words to answer him. He popped the little bag open, emptied its contents onto the bathroom counter and pulled a grubby five-dollar bill out of his back pocket. 

“Jon, dude. You okay?” came William’s persistent voice. This time followed by a knock and a twist of the doorknob. 

Jon lowered his head down towards the counter and sniffed up the small amount of white powder with his eyes closed. 

“Patrick broke up with him,” he heard William tell Gabe from outside. Jon’s head pulsed. He drew his head back and rubbed his nose. Sometimes he felt that instead of doing coke he should just drink enough strong coffee to make him sweat, rub the insides of his nostrils with sandpaper until they bled and then go and hang out with a group of people he didn’t trust. Sometimes that’s how the drug made him feel and he suspected tonight would be one of those nights. He sat down on the toilet seat and rubbed at his beard. 

“Jon. Dude.” William’s voice sounded firm. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” Jon replied. He stood up, flushed the toilet to make the guys outside think he’d been using it and looked at his face in the mirror. His pupils were already dilated and he checked his nose before twisting the lock on the bathroom door and being met by William’s tall, lanky frame. 

“You cool, man?” he asked, leaning up against the wall, crotch pushed out, arms folded. 

“Yeah. I’m cool. I’m just so fucking cool, man, oh my god. So… Patrick’s been fucking Pete Wentz – for four months.” 

Gabe, who was sat in the living room, rolling another joint, snorted a laugh, but Jon couldn’t force himself to care. William’s eyebrows raised, and his mouth fell open, the tiniest shadow of a surprised smile etched across his face. 

“What the fuck?” he asked, following Jon into the living room and sitting on the arm of the couch next to Gabe. Jon paced in front of the fireplace. 

“Yeah. Fuck, man, I was really praying no one else was involved, you know, but that fucking- Oh my god!” Jon couldn’t even find the words to describe Pete. “That fucking asshole, fucking _freak,”_ he decided on. He pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose and pinched. His heart rate was beginning to pick up. 

“Four months, man, that sucks,” William stated from the couch. Jon fixed him with his gaze. 

“I don’t get it. Patrick and I were together _six years_ and we hardly argued; we had loads of the same shit in common, sex was good. I don’t understand.” Jon ran his hands though his hair and sighed. “I swear to god, I’m gonna kill that motherfucker next time I see him. He’s a fucking joke, all his stupid, shitty tattoos, what the fuck, man?” Jon finished quietly, talking more to himself than either of the men in front of him. 

“Pete is straight-edge though,” Gabe chimed in, bringing the joint to his mouth and licking it sealed. “ _And_ he’s got a job; and Patrick’s like,” he looked around the messy living room for inspiration. “He got really sensible this past year or so. Maybe he needs more than some unemployed coke-head.” 

Gabe was tactless, but Jon couldn’t muster up any anger at his words. He chewed the insides of his bottom lip and sniffed hard, sitting down heavily on the couch. 

“Here,” Gabe called, offering Jon the freshly rolled joint. Jon accepted and grabbed for a lighter on William’s cluttered coffee table. 

He inhaled sharply and started to cough, passing the joint back to Gabe’s already outstretched hand. 

“We should go out to Hole in the Wall tonight. Call up Joe and Travis and get fucked up. Travie’s apparently got some bomb ass acid, we should go in on a sheet,” William informed the room, his hand messing up the back of his chin-length hair. Jon’s heart was contracting behind his ribs and he was starting to feel hot again in the stuffy little living room. He sat back on the couch and blinked up at the ceiling. 

“You should take it easy. You’re not going to have a good time if you go out and get fucked up tonight,” Gabe told him, passing back the joint. Jon sat there with it in between his fingers for a few moments. 

“Dude,” he sighed, “I just found out in the middle of a Starbucks that my boyfriend’s a fucking cheat. I’m not going to have a good time either way.” 

Gabe shrugged and Jon took another deep drag.

“I am ready to get _fucked up_ ,” he told his two friends. “Bring it on.”

 

* * *

  

Jon was tripping. Hard. He’d taken ten hits of acid prior to leaving Travis’s house and was currently stood on the edge of the dance floor of the local gay bar, alone. He knew he shouldn’t freak out, but it was beginning to get that way. William and Gabe and Joe had disappeared and why the fuck did he take ten hits before coming out to a club, he scolded himself. Jon struggled to keep his eyes open, the bodies on the dance floor were merging into each other; colors and strobes from the lights on the ceiling did nothing to subdue his trip. He hated tripping indoors. The club was playing 80s hits and it was as if he could see the tunes pumping out of the speakers. He needed fresh air or else he was going to pass out. He tried to push past the bodies on the dance floor, but it felt like he was trying to wade through mud. The crowd was closing in around him. Jon very rarely bad-tripped; he’d been doing acid since he was fourteen and usually it was a good time. 

Tonight though – he should’ve known. He should’ve listened to Gabe. Gabe was a drug connoisseur. He should’ve listened that 10 hits was too much; hell, he should have listened when they were sat back in William’s apartment and Gabe said he wouldn’t have a good time if he went and got fucked up. He was going to have an acid freak out in the middle of a club. His heart was thumping so hard. He needed to get outside. He pushed dancers out of the way and then felt a hand grab onto his arm and pull him backwards. 

Joe. Jon’s heart rate started to even at seeing a familiar face. 

“I need to leave!” Jon shouted above the beat of the music. 

Joe raised his hand to his mouth, miming having a drink. He pointed behind Jon at the bar and Jon nodded, feeling woozy. 

Once out of the crowd, Jon started to feel a little better. He felt dizzy, as if the walls were moving and he couldn’t quite keep upright, but Joe had ordered a bottle of water from behind the bar and pushed it into his hands. Jon downed the whole thing in a couple of seconds and dropped the empty bottle to the floor before making a quick dash for the exit. 

“You need a stamp,” the doorman said, after Jon pushed his way past him. Jon hated dealing with doormen when he was on drugs. He offered the burly man his wrist and breathed in the cold night air. He thought briefly about going home before realizing he didn’t live at home anymore and that Patrick was probably in bed with Pete. He crossed the street, sat on a wall opposite the club and lit up a cigarette. 

Joe appeared in the doorway of the bar a few moments later, his long hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. Jon gave a small wave and Joe crossed the street to meet him. 

“’S’up?” he asked, pulling his own packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and pulling out a lighter. 

Jon didn’t answer. 

“Bill told me about you and Patrick. You two were together for ages, huh?” 

“Six years.” 

“Fuck, man…” 

“I think acid tonight was a bad idea.” Jon forced a laugh and Joe sat down next to him on the wall so close that their arms and knees touched. 

“Bad tripping?” he asked. “I can’t do that shit in places like that,” he said, pointing towards the club. “I freak. You staying at Bill’s?” 

“Yeah. Couch-surfing.” The doorway of the club was lit with red and Jon swore it looked like the gateway to hell. 

“What happened? Why’d you two break up?” 

“Dude… he was cheating on me.” 

“With who?” came Joe’s surprised reaction. 

“Pete.” 

“As in _Pete_ Pete?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Oh, shit. Wow… How long for?” 

Jon sighed and flicked his cigarette to the sidewalk. “He said four months, but who fucking knows…” Jon closed his eyes. He wanted to get into a car, drive out to the lake and lay there until the sun came up. He was sure that’d pull him out of his bad trip. Joe’s hand was on his back, rubbing his shoulder blades through his sweater. 

Jon opened his eyes and looked down at his feet, he was pretty sure that if he moved his head too much he’d puke. 

“I’m sorry, man. I don’t know what to say. I always thought you and Patrick were such a solid couple. You’re the last people I’d ever imagine breaking up.” Joe’s hand fell back into his lap and Jon couldn’t tell whether that was because he wanted it to or because he could hear William’s laughter from across the road. 

When Jon looked up, William, Gabe and Travis were walking across the street towards them. The sky looked way lower than it used to. Jon’s eyes felt dry. He should have stuck to the coke – at least that way he wouldn’t be fucking tripping.

“We’re going to get some burritos,” William told the two men sat on the wall. “Y’all coming?” 

Jon shook his head and then remembered that the only thing he’d eaten today had been a granola bar at breakfast. He hadn’t even finished it. 

“Joe Troh?” William asked, rolling on his heels. 

Joe cast a cautionary glance at Jon and shook his head in response. “Nah, think I’ll skip out on this one too,” he replied. “You can come back to mine, if you want,” he said, after the three other men had ambled away. “Sleep in the spare room; it’ll probably be better than Bill’s couch.” 

“Thanks,” Jon replied, not really meaning it. He followed Joe’s lead, falling into step beside him. 

“You okay?” his friend asked at the end of the block. 

“Not really, but,” he sighed and bit the inside of his lip, “I’ll get over it.” 

“Fuck ‘em, man. I always thought Patrick was cool, but obvs not. Pete’s always been a douche – I’ve know him since I was sixteen and he hasn’t changed, but that’s too close to home, man. What a shitty move,” Joe rambled. 

“I know, right?” Jon lit up another cigarette and thought about Patrick’s lips around Pete’s cock. He thought about him taking his dick in his ass and felt like slamming his head into a wall. He needed something to knock him the fuck out. He couldn’t deal with this reality.

 

* * *

 

Jon was twenty-one when he met Patrick and he had been wild. Jon took drugs every single day in college and everyone was surprised when he was awarded his Bachelor’s degree a year after meeting Patrick. No one could believe it when he managed to bag a job at one of the most prestigious private schools in Chicago either. 

Patrick had studied the same course as Jon, but graduated a year earlier. He’d struggled to find a job for a little while, but eventually got hired as a music teacher in one of the worst performing schools in the city. Jon always sensed a little bit of jealousy on Patrick’s part – he’d worked hard at college and had only indulged in drugs on the weekend. After four straight years of partying and missing class, Jon Walker snagged a job straight away in a school that cost more per term than Patrick’s paycheck. 

Jon was the breadwinner. Patrick could have quit work and collected unemployment and they’d have still managed to pay rent and their bills off Jon’s salary, but Patrick liked the challenge of difficult pupils and he was passionate, which was more than Jon had ever been about his job. 

They’d hooked up a few months before Patrick graduated and Jon hadn’t really expected to go to college and get a boyfriend, but Patrick was funny and they shared a lot of similar interests. For a year they kept it casual. Jon was still in college, Patrick understood that – they were just hook-up buddies, but three months before Jon got his Bachelor’s degree, Patrick admitted that he wanted commitment after his graduation, and Jon was prepared to give that to him. 

On the night of Jon’s graduation, lying in bed together, Patrick told Jon he loved him and Jon admitted the same. It was easy between them, they got on with each other’s families, Jon liked Patrick’s friends and Patrick liked Jon’s. They did drugs together on the weekend, they smoked weed together after school and Jon was happy - being in a long-term relationship never seemed like the big deal a lot of their mutual friends thought it was. 

Jon had always known he was gay and so had Patrick – their families were accepting and loving and kind and neither of them had suffered any sort of injustice in their lives. Jon had always been reasonably lucky in life, from a fuck-up teenager he’d matured into a semi-responsible adult with a partner, a nice, clean apartment and a well-paid job, all without too much effort on his part. 

Jon had met Pete through Joe and had always thought that his presence was an odd addition to their circle of friends. Pete was proudly straightedge, but didn’t seem to mind sitting in a room full of people taking drugs and when Jon was high, he wondered why this weirdo enjoyed hanging out with them. Pete didn’t take drugs, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink… Jon never really trusted him; not that they’d ever really had much to do with each other but for some reason Pete and Patrick got along like a house on fire. 

Jon wasn’t jealous, he trusted Patrick. He didn’t know whether he trusted Pete, but he trusted Patrick. 

Then Patrick started to back out of weekend parties, saying he couldn’t do coke every week because it was too expensive and was getting boring. For a few weeks Jon had opted to stay home with his boyfriend – they still smoked pot together, while they did boring shit like renting movies and ordering pizza but eventually Jon started getting restless – his friends were out having fun without him and one Friday evening, about a year ago, he tried his hardest to convince Patrick to come out with him, hang with William, do some E, it’d be fun, he said. Patrick refused and Jon went out anyway for the full weekend, arriving back at their apartment on Sunday afternoon on an almighty coke comedown. He thought he’d be in trouble; but Patrick had shrugged and assured him he wasn’t angry, just glad he was home. 

Jon went out every weekend, accompanied by his boyfriend sometimes only once a month. Pete had stopped hanging out, but nobody was really that bothered. Jon was relieved; Pete was _boring_ and a few months later, Patrick, out of the blue said he was giving up pot, that it made him lazy and hungry and Jon had cocked his eyebrow in response, but thought – _fair enough, good for him_. Patrick hadn’t smoked for about nine months before breaking up with Jon and every weekend, Jon expected to be asked to slow down, stop going out every weekend, reminded about his responsible job as a science teacher, but the conversation never happened and looking back, Patrick had been distant for months. 

Jon figured that Patrick wanted Jon to stop of his own accord, didn’t want to have to sit down and beg him to not get so wasted on the weekend. A few months before their two and a half minute sex tape went viral across Jon’s school, he figured he could cut back for Patrick. He spent a lot of money going out partying after all, and he always got home feeling shitty the next day. It wasn’t really much fun without Patrick, anyway. He offered to stay home one weekend and Patrick had got antsy. 

“You don’t have to. I know you like hanging out with the guys, you don’t have to stay home for my benefit.” 

“But what do you _do_ here alone all weekend?” he asked, frustrated. 

“I find shit to do. Go out, have fun. I trust you,” Patrick had told him, leaning up to kiss Jon’s jaw. That moment was the first time since they’d met that Jon didn’t trust Patrick. 


	4. Chapter 4

The morning after the bad acid trip, Jon had woken up to a knock on the door. Cracking his eyes open, it took him a moment to realize he was in Joe’s spare bedroom, passed out on top of the blanket, still with his shoes on. 

“What’s up?” Joe drawled from the doorway. Jon’s head was pounding. The light flowing in from the open curtains hurt his eyes, so he closed them again. “How’re you feeling?” 

“Oh, man,” Jon groaned, rubbing his eyes. “I feel like shit.” 

Joe stepped into the room and sat down on the edge of the single bed at Jon’s feet. Jon pulled his legs up into his stomach and rolled over onto his side. 

“You need me to pop over to your place, pick up any shit for you?” 

Jon had been in the same clothes for three days now. 

“That’s kind of you, but – I’ll go. Alone. I’m going to have to go over there eventually.” 

Joe nodded and there was a silence. Jon pulled out his cellphone from his pocket to check the time, but the battery was dead. He hauled his aching body up from the bed and yawned. 

“Dude, I was thinking. I haven’t seen Pete in like, a long time – over a year. And when did Patrick stop hanging out, like, Christmas before last? You sure it’s only been going on for four months?” 

Joe’s words clamped around Jon’s heart. He’d been thinking something along the same lines. Pete had disappeared around the same time Patrick started to stay at home – and then there was Patrick giving up weed, his unfazed reaction to Jon staying out all weekend… 

“I don’t know,” Jon shook his head. 

“I’m not saying that to fuck with you, I’m just saying, it’s weird that they both stopped hanging out with us at around the same time.” 

“Last Christmas,” Jon answered. He calculated the months in his head. “Sixteen months ago. Fuck me,” he sighed slowly. 

“You need to talk to him,” Joe said, pushing Jon up off the bed. 

Joe was right, he did need to speak to Patrick. He needed answers – he needed the truth, but Jon wasn’t sure he could handle it un-medicated.

 

* * *

 

Patrick was still in his pajamas when he opened the door to Jon that morning. Jon had debated just walking in, but had knocked instead, hoping to give Pete Wentz enough time to run if he was inside. 

“Hi,” Patrick mumbled, stepping back to let Jon into their house. 

Jon couldn’t keep his mouth buttoned for long. As soon as the door closed behind him, he stared Patrick down and said, “how long’s it been going on between you and Pete?” 

“Four months. It was after New Year, after you lost your job,” the words fell out of Patrick’s mouth like a waterfall, as if he’d practiced them one hundred times before. 

“Bullshit,” Jon spat. “Tell me the truth.” 

“That’s the truth. Jon, I swear.” Patrick couldn’t look him in the eye. He faltered over his words. 

“You’re lying. I know you’re lying. Please Patrick, do me this _one_ favor and tell me the truth. _Please_. How long has it been going on?” 

Patrick’s eyes looked skyward and he sighed. He seemed to battle with his mouth for a few moments, before looking down at his bare feet. Jon waited – and he waited. His palm reached out and pushed Patrick backwards. He only reason Patrick fell so hard against the wall was because he hadn’t been expecting it. 

“How long, goddammit.” 

“Jon – I’m sorry. It’s been going on for a bit longer than four months, but I was never really sure it meant anything. You were always out. All you wanted to do was get fucked up – every fucking weekend and Pete was just so different from you. He – he’s not hell bent on drinking and partying. He doesn’t even drink, he doesn’t need to.” 

“Pete doesn’t drink because he’s a square little bitch with a fucking mental issue,” Jon spat, pointing at his head. “Don’t you pretend this is my fault, that I’m some fucking drug-fiend who never cared about you. I did,” he barked. “I _loved_ you, Patrick. _Fuck,_ I still love you and you’ve been running around behind my back – for how _long_?” 

“It started when you went to New York with Bill and Gabe,” Patrick told him quickly, the words all running into each other. “I’m sorry.” 

Jon tried to figure out the time frame. He’d gone to New York the summer before last. That was close to two years ago. _Four months_ , Patrick had told him – two _years_! Jon shook his head, disbelieving. He’d been angry at four months, but at two years he just felt sad. He'd heard about people feeling like their hearts had been broken. This felt like his was going to implode - as if Patrick had just plunged his fist into his chest, right through his ribs and torn it from his body - and his guts too. He felt like his guts were unravelling. He couldn’t even speak. 

“Jon, please don’t get mad, I don’t want you to do anything stupid,” Patrick called as Jon walked towards their bedroom. 

“Why did you do it?” he asked. “With him? Why?” 

Patrick shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.” 

 _“_ D’you love him?” 

Another helpless shoulder-shrug escaped from Patrick’s body and Jon scoffed. _God, this hurts_ , he thought as he pushed open the bedroom door and grabbed his travel bag from under the bed. 

“Jon-” 

“Don’t talk to me,” was Jon’s yelled response. “How _could_ you? I went to New York _two_ fucking _years_ ago and what, you couldn’t keep it in your pants until I got back? I went for a _week!”_

“I always thought you liked partying more than you liked being with me. You’re a drug addict.” 

“I am _not_ a drug addict,” Jon assured him, pulling t-shirts and hoodies carelessly off hangers and throwing them into his bag. “And bull _shit,_ Patrick. I tried to stay home with you, I could’ve given up that lifestyle any time, but you never asked me to.” 

“I didn’t want to have to ask you.” Patrick’s voice was raised now too. “I can’t live with a guy whose sole intention every weekend is to hang out with his coke-head friends and see how wasted he can get.” 

“So, why didn’t you break up with me two years ago? Why did you keep me on the scene? What, you knew I made money and then I lost my job and you figured you’d be better off with Pete after all?” Jon stepped up in Patrick’s face and Patrick tried not to back down. “I loved you. I fucking loved you – and you lied to me.” His voice cracked at the end. 

“I loved you too,” Patrick choked. “I’m-” 

“What, you’re _sorry?_ It doesn’t mean _shit_ , Patrick. You’re a liar – and you’re a cheat and I hope you two are very happy together. I hope, for your sake, that Pete doesn’t try to kill himself again, that’d really suck,” he bit, throwing an old pair of sneakers on top of his clothes and zipping up his bag. He looked at Patrick and tried to feel love. “You’re choosing him over me?” he asked, pointedly. “Don’t try and bullshit me around anymore. Yes or no?” 

“Yes,” the older man responded and then his face crumpled. 

“Fine.” And Jon shrugged. He pushed past Patrick and yanked the front door open, slamming it behind him. 

Patrick didn’t follow.

 

* * *

 

Jon didn’t know what to do, or where to go. He had several options, but neither of them seemed that viable at the moment. He could go back to William’s dirty little apartment, crash on the couch for a few more days and lose his woes to drink and drugs. He could ask Joe if he could stay in his spare bedroom – just until he got himself sorted. He’d still be able to comfort himself with booze and pills and at least he’d be able to crash out on an actual bed at the end of the night. 

There was always the option of going to stay at his mom’s. His mom would certainly look after him – he’d get to sleep in his childhood bedroom – the same bed that he and Patrick had slept in together before they got a place of their own. He didn’t want that – he also didn’t feel too much like being mothered. His mom would ask all the questions Jon didn’t feel like answering and she’d pity him, no doubt. He didn’t need to be made to feel any more pathetic than he already did. 

He knew what he should do was pull himself the fuck together, use this break-up as an excuse to find another job, lay off the drugs and start handing out résumés. If he went and got fucked up, Patrick would have the upper hand and Perfect Pete would stand out nonchalantly as _the right decision._ He knew what he should do, but what he should and what he wanted to do were two entirely different things. 

He drove to Joe’s house, but Joe was out, so he sat in the driveway getting more and more angry as a full hour and a half passed by. It was just gone 3PM when Joe’s car pulled in next to Jon’s. 

“Did you go talk to Patrick?” Joe asked, unlocking his front door and letting Jon inside. 

“Yeah…” 

“And?” 

Jon waited until the door closed behind his friend and looked toward him, miserably. 

“Two years, dude. I’m a fucking fool.” 

“Two _years_? That’s been going on for two years?” Joe’s eyebrows rose under his thick head of hair and Jon nodded solemnly, dropping his bag of clothes at the bottom of the stairs and shrugging off his coat. 

“Well, maybe not quite two years, but close enough.” Joe ushered him into the living room and sat on the couch opposite him, legs spread as wide as his jeans would let him. “Remember when Bill and Gabe and I went to New York and Patrick stayed home?” 

Joe didn’t even nod, just sat there with a stupid look of disbelief on his face. 

“Well. Since then. That was the August before last, man. That’s close enough to two fucking years.” Jon groaned. “Oh my god, I feel like such an idiot. How didn’t I know?” 

“Did he tell you why?” 

Jon began to pull his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and spat out a bitter laugh. 

“Pete doesn’t take drugs, Pete doesn’t smoke… Pete’s not _you_ ,” he mocked, mimicking Patrick’s voice, with a whine. 

“Dude, Patrick’s a fine one to talk – he was just as bad as any of us not too long ago, and you say he’s been seeing Pete behind your back for _two years_ , man? _Fuck_!” Joe exclaimed. 

Jon didn’t really know what to do or say. His emotions were always pretty level, but now it felt as if a bomb had gone off inside his heart. His mind was flipping from one emotion to the other and it was a new experience for him. He _did_ love Patrick. He didn’t tell him all the time, but he loved him and now Patrick didn’t want him. Above all things, he was feeling sorry for himself. His tight-knit circle of friends would soon all know his business and he wondered if any of them had twigged onto Patrick’s affair any earlier than he had. 

 _He had to tell you_ , Jon scolded himself. _He was that fed up, he had to spell it out for you._ Jon lit up his cigarette and puffed on it, dazed. _You’re a fucking moron,_ he chided. 

“I didn’t think things could get any worse for me after I lost my job. I always figured Patrick and I would be just – _together_ , y’know? Forever. And then he says he’s been unhappy for months and then I find out he’s been fucking Pete – and now _today_ , he tells me it’s been going on behind my back for _two years_? I bet they were fucking laughing at me the whole time, man. And then,” Jon continued, pointing his cigarette at Joe, “he acts like it’s my fault, that I was never there for him, that I was always out. Two _years_ , dude!” he repeated, shaking his head. “This week could _not_ get any worse.” 

“You should go get tested, man. Get yourself down to the clinic, Pete was always real slutty back when I first knew him. You were always faithful to Pat though, right?” 

That’d be just Jon’s luck – the thought of Pete and Patrick fucking bareback made him feel sick. He didn’t _think_ Patrick would be that stupid, but he couldn’t put it past him. He’d thought briefly about going to get tested, but had conveniently forgotten about it between being dumped by his boyfriend and finding out said boyfriend had been hooking up with someone else for almost two years. 

“I never cheated on him, not once. Even when I was still in college and we were just casual fuck-buddies, you know? And what pisses me off is that I had _plenty_ of opportunities. When I wasn’t out with Patrick, it would’ve been easy for me to cheat on him and I didn’t because, well, I’d like to think I’m a good guy and I fucking loved him and now I wish I had, because maybe I wouldn’t feel so goddamn pathetic right now.” 

“Dude, I’m sorry,” Joe told him. “We need to go out and find you a guy. Get you laid.” 

Jon finished off his cigarette and forced a laugh. “I wouldn’t know where to start.” 

It was true; Jon had never really dated anyone apart from Patrick. When he lost his virginity at fifteen, up until he was twenty-one, he’d never been exclusive with anyone. He’d fucked random guys in his dorm, he’d snuck friends back to his mom’s house and had gone home with older men he met in bars, but he’d never gone on a proper date – not until he met Patrick. The realization made him feel kind of sad. 

“You’re good-looking, bro – and you’ve got a good career; that is, when you’re not fucking it up, sucking dick on the Internet.” 

Jon genuinely laughed at this – the first real, positive emotion he’d felt in days. 

“Yeah, I done fucked that one up too,” he smiled, kind of embarrassed that Joe had even brought it up, but thankful to him for lightening the mood. He sure needed it. “Man, I’m never gonna get another job in Chicago.” 

“Well, at least you’ve got a fallback plan; if the whole science teacher thing goes to shit. You could make a pretty buck,” Joe chimed, pushing his tongue into his cheek and curling his fingers into his palm, moving his hand to mime a blowjob. 

Jon laughed again, softly and Joe waggled his eyebrows. 

“You staying here tonight?” he asked, hauling himself up off the couch and stretching in the middle of the room. Jon looked surreptitiously up toward the bulge in Joe’s pants and remembered William telling him once that Joe Trohman had the biggest dick he’d ever seen. He pushed the thought immediately from his head and grabbed for another cigarette. 

“If that’s okay. Bill’s couch is crazy uncomfortable and his house-keeping skills are shot.” 

Joe chuckled. “Sure. I accept rent in BJs and handjobs,” he joked, looking back at Jon from the living room door. 

“Ha! You wish.” Jon sucked on his cigarette and glanced up at his friend in the doorway. His mind was drawn back to William’s story about how, one morning, he walked in on Joe in the shower and caught a glimpse of his flaccid cock hanging between his legs. _It was the size of a fucking baseball bat, no joke,_ William had told him and Jon had to stifle a laugh at the memory. 

“I’m kidding. Kinda. Go get showered, man – and change your fucking clothes,” he called from the hallway. “You ain’t gon’ impress any guys if you smell like balls.” 

Jon’s lips pulled up into a half-smile and he sat on the couch, finishing off his cigarette. Joe was easy to get along with and Jon had always enjoyed his company. He humored the idea of hooking up with him in an attempt to hurt Patrick, but the concept seemed alien to him. He hadn’t fucked anyone else since he was twenty-one, and the sex was good between himself and Patrick because they trusted each other. Or had. 

 _Maybe I didn’t satisfy him,_ Jon wondered. _Why else would he sleep with someone else?_ Joe was right, he needed to get laid, because the thought that Patrick was one man ahead of him made his ego plummet. He stood up and pulled at his hoodie to smell it – he stank. He shuffled out of the living room and picked up his bag at the bottom of the stairs. 

In the shower, he thought about Patrick non-stop, and he had to open his eyes wide and blink up at the light to stop himself from crying.


	5. Chapter 5

Jon was sat in Travis McCoy’s dirty living room, sat between William and Gabe on a grubby couch. He felt like he was in the middle of an intervention; because his two friends kept asking questions he didn’t really have the answers to and if he did, he didn’t want to answer them. 

He and Joe had walked to Travis’s house in hopes of getting some MDMA. Jon had cleaned up and trimmed his beard and was feeling slightly more human than he had a few hours ago. He hadn’t expected William and Gabe to be there, already a few beers deep, but it was early on Saturday evening, so he figured they had nowhere else to go. 

William was the kind of person to get way up in one’s personal space, and Jon had always found it disconcerting. Right now, his body was angled towards Jon’s, his long arm flung over the back of the couch behind Jon’s neck, and he was there, leaning on his shoulder. Jon was beginning to feel claustrophobic. 

Gabe was taking bong rips on the other side of him and Joe was sat off in the corner of the room, in an armchair, nursing a beer. 

All anyone had wanted to talk about was Patrick and Pete, and Jon had attempted to be vague about his conversation with his ex about how long his affair had been going on, but had eventually just spilled the beans. He didn’t know whether he’d been trying to protect Patrick or himself. All his anger had melted away into self-pity and William was currently shaking his head, asking all sorts of questions about how and where and why and Jon explained, _when me and you and Gabe went to New York? Yeah, apparently that was the first time._  

Travis re-entered the room and handed Jon a cold can of PBR. He tried to dig his cigarettes out of his pants pocket, but William was so close he couldn’t move his hips up. 

“Will you move back a bit?” he snapped, irritated. “Gimme some space, jeez.” 

William shifted back a few inches but immediately folded his long legs underneath him. His knees pressed up against Jon’s thigh and Jon had to stand up and climb over him before he started to flip out. 

“I don’t want to talk about them anymore. Let’s just go out and have a good time and let’s not mention either of them. Please.” Jon inhaled on his cigarette and waited for each of the men in the room to acknowledge him. Travis flashed him a sympathetic little look and dug around in a cabinet drawer for a few seconds before pulling out a little plastic Ziploc bag and throwing it over to him. Inside were two tablets of ecstasy, which Travis claimed were _on the house._

 _Pity drugs,_ he thought. _Great._  

After a few more beers, a few hits of weed and a couple of slices of take-out pizza, Jon took one tab and pushed the other one into the back of his pants pocket. The four friends, excluding Travis whose busiest night selling weed and pills was a Saturday, all hopped into a taxi to one of the busiest gay clubs in downtown Chicago. 

Jon was just beginning to feel the effects of the E when they entered the club and Joe, who’d bought a couple of pills from Travis as well, was at his elbow, dragging him to the bar. He certainly felt a little more energetic once he’d had another beer and by midnight, was flying. Joe had pushed into him on the dance floor and placed his hands on Jon’s hips from behind. He’d whispered into his ear if he wanted to take another pill. 

Jon couldn’t see the harm – apart from the fact that he might end up in bed with Joe later, but _fuck it,_ he thought, swallowing his second pill of the night. Fuck _it_ and fuck _Pete_ and especially fuck Patrick.

 

* * *

 

It was 3AM by the time Jon, William and Gabe all rolled drunkenly back to Joe’s house. The second ecstasy tablet they’d taken at the club was now in full swing and Jon was aware only of how dry his mouth was and his clenched jaw beginning to ache. 

He felt good, considering his shitty week – euphoric even and all his stress and anxiety and fear had seemed to melt away, forgotten about. He was just happy to be out with some good friends, who he knew cared about him. Patrick crossed his mind a number of times, but he didn’t feel particularly angry towards him; he tried to concentrate on the here and now. His friends – Bill and Gabe and Joe, were there for him and each time one of them bumped into him, or put their hand on him, his nerves tingled with anticipation. E had always made him horny, and the last time he’d taken it was last Christmas Eve with Patrick. Now that Patrick wasn’t around anymore, he needed to find a new outlet for his sexual frustrations and Joe had either been flirting with him or teasing him for the majority of the evening - Jon couldn’t figure out which - so he was looking like his best bet. 

Gabe and William had had something going on for as long as Jon had known either of them. It was weird, because when Gabe wasn’t around, William had something going on with Travis too and they always just hung out together, the three of them, without any awkwardness. Briefly, Jon wondered if Travis and Gabe ever double-teamed William and sat on Joe’s couch, a beer in his hand, the thought kind of turned him on. 

His jaw was fucking aching and he watched William and Gabe together on the couch, William’s leg slung over Gabe’s, Gabe’s arm loose around William’s lower back. He thought about Patrick, but then he thought about Pete and he started to feel paranoid. 

Joe was somewhere in the kitchen, Jon could hear him moving things around in there or clattering plates together and he thought about going to find him. William and Gabe were pressing their foreheads together, close to kissing and Jon didn’t really know where to direct his eyes. 

It was a few moments later that his attention was drawn from the two men in front of him and up towards the living room door, opening just to the left of the two entangled bodies on the couch. Joe poked his head through, glancing briefly at the two friends before settling his eyes on Jon and gesturing up the stairs with a slow jerk of his head. Then he disappeared and Jon finished off his cigarette before following him upstairs. 

Joe’s door was open a crack, his bedroom light was on and Jon peeked into the room, just as Joe was pulling his pants down. Jon didn’t know whether he’d planned that, because William’s stories were correct. Joe Trohman was packing a monster between his legs and Jon’s lips couldn’t help but grin. He stepped back into the darkness of the hallway and knocked softly at the door. 

“Yep?” 

“You decent?” Jon called. 

“Kinda. Come in.” 

Jon pushed the bedroom door open and gazed at his friend, sat topless on his bed in a pair of pajama pants. Jon thought he looked good; he didn’t know whether that was the drugs or his recent break-up with Patrick, but he stepped into the room and closed the door quietly behind him. 

“Bill and Gabe’ll probs’ take the spare room tonight. You can sleep in here, I’ll sleep on the couch.” 

“Yeah, they’re totally getting into it down there right now. You may wanna give ‘em a little while,” Jon explained, walking towards the bed and flopping down on the mattress, on his stomach. “Sorry,” he added, as an afterthought. “For walking in on you getting changed.” 

Joe laughed. “That’s cool. I don’t care.” 

“Yeah.” Jon thought about his friend’s big dick and wondered how it felt to get fucked by it. Jon had always been naturally dominant over Patrick and had usually been the Top in their relationship, but every now and then he enjoyed getting fucked. It had been a while – Jon tried to figure out how long – probably over a year. He wondered if Pete and Patrick had fucked in their bed, whether the same dildos that had been up his ass had also been inside Pete. He balked at the thought. 

Joe’s hand was on his shoulder and the touch sent lightening bolts straight into Jon’s dick. It felt good to be touched and so Jon shifted up toward the pillow and inhaled sharply when he felt Joe shift over his body, his hands rubbing at his shoulders. Jon closed his eyes. 

“You have a lot of upper body tension,” Joe told him, quietly. 

“Yeah, I have a lot of lower body tension, as well.” 

Joe chuckled and Jon felt him swing his leg over his body and sit back on his haunches. _It’s just a massage,_ Jon told himself – a massage from his half-naked best friend while they’re both high on ecstasy… Jon turned his head to the side and blinked out across Joe’s bedroom. At least Joe’s bed sheets were clean, Jon told himself. Joe’s strong hands were working out the knots in Jon’s shoulders and then travelled down his spine, back up to his neck and into his hair. 

Joe was making him hard and his breathing was becoming uneven. He hoped Joe wouldn’t notice. 

“Take your fucking shirt off, dude, it doesn’t work with clothes on.” 

Jon was feeling relaxed – and he sure wanted skin-on-skin contact, but his dick was hard and if he sat up, Joe was going to see. He pushed his upper body up from the bed and struggled out of his t-shirt, throwing it down onto the floor. He lay back down quickly and Joe shifted on top of him again, his fingers pushing all the aches and pains out of Jon’s back. Jon couldn’t help but groan and then, after a few more moments, Joe’s hands were at the small of his back, his thumbs rubbing in small circles either side of his spine. 

From downstairs, Jon could hear William getting fucked, and it was just making the situation between he and Joe even more awkward. He wondered if Joe was aware of the effect he was having on him. 

“So, what’s up, you D.T.F.?” 

“Hmm?” Jon replied, raising his head slightly from the pillow. Joe was always using Internet abbreviations that Jon didn’t understand. He had a Facebook account which he never used and probably couldn’t even remember the password to, but he didn’t get what half the shit Joe talked about even meant. 

“Down to fuck. ‘Cause, uh, I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little turned on here, and you know – I’m only massaging you half naked in hopes that you’ll put out.” 

Jon smiled and felt Joe flop down beside him on the bed. 

“And here was me thinking you just wanted to relieve my woes, help me unwind after my shitty week…” he said slowly, lazily. Jon averted his eyes toward the tent in Joe’s pajama pants. He was turned on, and Joe shifted his body closer. 

“Well, that too,” Joe replied, and then his fingers were hooking in the top of Jon’s jeans and his other hand was pulling his belt buckle open and Jon let him continue, because he was horny and he was high – and he’d just been dumped by the man he loved. “I’ve got poppers,” Joe told him, as he opened his jeans and wrapped his hand around Jon’s semi-hard dick. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, what decade is it?” Jon brushed his palm over the bulge in his friend’s pants, gripping his cock through the thin fabric. “Poppers suck.” 

He’d used poppers before, but not in a long time, not while he was with Patrick. He was a teenager last time he used them during sex and if he remembered correctly all they did was give him a killer headache. 

“Work good as a muscle relaxer though,” Joe informed him. 

Jon pushed Joe’s pants down and his dick sprang free. It was already about eight inches and he wasn’t even fully erect yet. He knew Joe probably got compliments on the size of his manhood all the time, so Jon kept quiet, and jerked him off silently. It felt weird. 

It felt weird because it wasn’t Patrick. Jon noticed just how different Joe felt – a bigger dick, for sure – but the shape and the girth too, the circumcision scar, the weight…   

“You could do some straight-up porno with this thing,” Jon told him, already unable to contain his surprise at the sheer size of it. A full nine inches at full erection and Jon just felt like turning over and passing out, because he wasn’t sure what to do with something that size. 

“Well, yeah – I mean, I love watching deep-throating videos, because there’s only been like, one guy who’s ever been able to do that for me and I was about twenty when that happened – and then I got excited over that video of you, but guessed it was Patrick’s dick, and Patrick’s a small guy, so figured it probably wasn’t that difficult for you to fit, what – five inches, down your throat.” 

Jon laughed, but felt kind of bad. He didn’t know why, he _should_ insult the size of Patrick’s penis, especially now, lying in bed with Joe Trohman who could have clubbed him to death with his cock. 

“Dude, fuck off. I’ve always been good at sucking cock. When I was in college, I was famous around campus for it. Where’re those Poppers at?” he asked, changing the subject. 

The attempted sex was awkward. Jon remembered thinking that as Joe tried to fuck him from behind. He was too tense and Joe was too rough – _and_ too big, and they struggled in silence for a few minutes, Jon on his knees and elbows, trying not to cower away each time he felt the head of Joe’s dick at his asshole. 

Jon held the small bottle of Poppers in his hand and unscrewed the cap. He took a deep inhale and the rush hit him almost immediately, straight into his head. He’d always been good at taking illegal substances, he’d never had a really bad experience – sure, he’d done some bunk drugs in his time, double dosed and then felt like his was having a heart attack, but the majority of the time, Jon coped well with whatever drugs he took – speed and coke and LSD and ‘shrooms and E… but the poppers made him feel horribly light headed. He took another sniff from the bottle and felt worse. Joe was still behind him, his hands on his hips, his dick pressing against his asshole and Jon thought he was going to be sick – or pass out. His heart rate spiked and he tried to reason with himself. 

 _You’ve done way worse shit than a couple of hits of amyls, pull yourself the fuck together._  

Then he could feel his body relaxing, and he didn’t know whether that was a good or a bad thing, his muscles felt like they were melting away from his bones, his heart was pumping, his head pounding and then his vision started to blur and he tried to wave Joe off, but time seemed to be slowing down. Even to speak seemed a huge effort. Jon didn’t like this feeling and the next thing he was aware of was Joe standing by the side of the bed, shaking his limp body and calling his name. 

“Hey, you okay? You passed out on me there.” 

Jon slowly blinked the room back into focus and tried to sit up, but his body felt weak. Joe’s dick was flaccid between his legs, and Jon felt like he was going to throw up, he felt the bile rising up his throat and quickly pushed himself up from the mattress and made a rush for the bathroom. His center of gravity was way off though and he fell against the ottoman at the foot of Joe’s bed. 

“Dude, come on.” Joe sounded surprised at Jon’s adverse reaction, perhaps even a little embarrassed. It was just poppers after all, even Jon was telling himself that. He accepted a half-empty bottle of stale water from Joe’s hand and drank, sitting against the bed for a moment to try and regain his composure. 

“I’m sorry,” he apologized from behind his hands. “I feel kinda nauseous.” 

“That’s cool,” Joe replied, but it wasn’t cool, it was weird. “No worries.” 

“I want to call Patrick.” The idea had hit him suddenly – as suddenly as the rush of the poppers and Jon made a grab for his jeans on the floor and pulled his cell phone out of the pocket. 

“Jon, it’s 4AM in the morning. The last thing you want to be doing now is calling Patrick up; after two ecstasy pills and a bad amyl trip.” Joe had slipped back into his pajama pants and Jon knew he was right. He was naked on his friend’s bedroom floor after a disastrous attempt at rebound sex and he felt fucking pathetic. He was sobering up, the effects of the E were now quickly ebbing away and he was left with the stark reality that he was alone. 

“Come on; you getting into bed or are you okay on the floor like that?” Joe asked, pulling his duvet over him and snuggling down into it. “It’s going to be really fucking hard, there’s no doubting that – you and Patrick were together for ages, and it’s only been a few days – and you’re gonna feel mad and angry and upset and want to smash shit up and get fucked up, but you’ve still got to keep your shit together, man. Don’t call him. Don’t give him the pleasure. Fuck ‘em, fuck ‘em both. Now, get into bed.” 

Jon stepped into his underpants and slipped into bed beside his friend. He blinked up at the ceiling and the two were quiet for a few moments. 

“I’m sorry for trying to fuck you. My bad.” 

Jon forced a laugh. “That’s okay. Dude, you don’t have to apologize.”

That was the end of their conversation, because after another five minutes of silence, Jon heard Joe starting to snore but he lay awake until gone 6AM, before falling into a fitful sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Jon woke up late, in bed, alone. _Oh god,_ he was embarrassed. He remembered the horrible attempt at sex he’d tried with his friend last night and then passing out from the poppers. He lay there for ten minutes, wondering how Joe would react to him this morning, before getting out of bed, hung over, and struggling into his jeans. 

He still felt a little bleary from lack of sleep and too many chemicals and when he went downstairs and found Joe sitting at his laptop in the kitchen, he felt his morning wasn’t going to get any better, because Joe looked like shit too. 

“Have you checked Facebook?” Joe asked him – and Jon never checked Facebook. He was constantly emptying his inbox of messages from Facebook informing him he’d been tagged at a certain bar or in a number of photos and that people he didn’t know or like wanted to be his Friends. He shook his head and held Joe’s cigarette packet up, to ask if he could borrow a smoke. 

“Dude, look at this. _Patrick Stump went from being In a Relationship to Single_ ,” Joe read and Jon stepped behind him and stared at the screen, scanning his eyes over the dozen or so messages of sympathy from mostly Patrick’s friends. “And look.” Joe clicked on a link that read _show three more comments_ and the first one, posted two minutes after Patrick’s relationship update was from Pete Wentz. All it was was a little pink heart, but Jon immediately felt the anger surge right into his chest. 

“Is he fucking serious?” Jon asked, moving in front of Joe and pushing him out of his seat. Jon scrolled through Joe’s Facebook news feed before reading all the comments left after Pete’s stupid pink heart. “Oh my god,” Jon groaned, pushing the laptop away and putting his head into his hands. 

 _Huhhh? What happened??? Call me._ And another message a few minutes later. _Get Jon to call me. Are you messing with us, Pat? xxxx_

“Tina Walker, is that your mom?” 

Jon nodded, silently. 

“You’ve not told her?” 

“I was gonna. After the weekend. Are you friends with Pete?” he asked Joe, pulling the laptop back in front of him and clicking on his name. 

“Yeah, but I had to block him, because he was forever posting these weird Facebook statuses.” 

Jon scrolled through Pete’s Facebook page – pictures of pizza and grey Chicago skies littered his homepage and Jon felt himself getting more and more angry confronted with the life of the man who’d been screwing his boyfriend for the past two years.

 “Oh my god, go back up,” Joe suddenly said, gripping Jon’s shoulder and pointing at the screen. Jon scrolled up and read over a couple of status updates from about a month ago. 

 _Isnt it messed up, how I’m just dying to be him?_

_I could be an accident, but least I’m trying which is more than I can say for him._

Jon blinked. Each status had one or two comments, a couple of Pete’s friends had posted little sad faces, but Patrick had liked _both_ statuses and Jon couldn’t do anything but just sit there in Joe’s kitchen and scroll up and down. 

“They’re about _you,_ man.” Joe said, hitting Jon’s shoulder roughly. “Don’t you think?” 

“And this guy is _how_ old? I could’ve sworn he was in his thirties, not fucking twelve,” Jon scoffed. He wondered if he’d spent more time on Facebook, liking peoples’ pictures and commenting on their check-ins, whether he’d have twigged something was going on between Pete and his boyfriend. Patrick had just been so obvious – right behind Jon’s back! He thought about his mom, logging onto Facebook this morning to find out her son’s relationship of six years had just come to an end. 

Jon scrolled further down Pete’s home page. 

 _Chinese wit my baby,_ Jon read silently. His nose started to tickle. _My guy is so handsome. Cant wait to be wit him again._ Jon covered his mouth with his hand and tried to take in what he was seeing. _Straight guyz are always complainin about chicks who dig bastards and never want to settle wit the nice guy well gay guys do it to jsyk._

The teacher inside of Jon shuddered at Pete’s overall lack of spelling and grammar.

“Fuck, man…” Joe’s voice was barely audible from behind him, his comment long and drawn out. Jon closed the window and sat there in silence. The cigarette he’d taken from Joe’s pack was still balanced between the fingers of his left hand and he reached for the lighter on the table and stood up quickly, the wooden chair legs scraping on the tiled kitchen floor. 

“Joe, I just can’t – what the fuck, man?” He took his cigarette out of his mouth and covered his face with his hand. He felt his shoulders start to heave and his eyelashes had to blink back tears. “Everybody must be thinking I’m such a fucking idiot,” he breathed, trying to rub away tears and pull himself back together. 

“Nobody thinks that,” Joe told him – and Joe was there, by his side, offering a comforting rub on the arm. 

Jon sniffed and straightened up, trying to shake all the anger and jealousy out of his head. “I have to go. I have to – think this through.” 

“Do what you gotta do, bro,” Joe told him. 

Jon tried to muster up the courage to step outside before he left the house and when he was safely inside his car, he drove to a CVS parking lot and dropped his face against the steering wheel. The tears flowed freely this time and it took him a full hour before he felt strong enough to walk into the store and purchase the cheapest bottle of vodka he could find.

 

* * *

 

Jon sat in his car smoking, with his window down and the heating blasting. It was still cold in Chicago and he was fed up. He needed a new job, maybe somewhere warm like California or Florida – somewhere with a beach. He thought about Patrick carrying on online like that – best friends with Pete, letting him post those stupid, vague updates. Maybe they loved each other, he thought. Maybe Pete truly was the greatest guy in the world who could offer Patrick everything he’d ever wanted – clean living, steady employment, romance and sweet nothings… 

His mother kept calling him and Jon kept ignoring her, hoping that she’d eventually get the message – after a dozen missed calls, he turned his phone off and threw it down on the passenger seat next to the bottle of vodka. 

Jon thought about a lot of things in the CVS parking lot; mostly about Patrick – about his face in the morning when he first woke up and the way he’d lay in the crook of his arm before he went to sleep at night. He thought about his mom and how much she adored Patrick and having them over for Christmas or Thanksgiving, she was always giving him hugs and telling Jon how swell Patrick was. Jon felt guilty for not wanting to talk to her, but her concerns were the last thing he needed right now. 

He twisted open the cap on the bottle of vodka and took a swig – his cigarettes were doing little to calm his nerves. He heaved at the taste and scolded himself for being such a sap, but he missed Patrick so much and deep in his heart he was praying for the impossible; that this was all just some elaborate joke. Surely their relationship wasn’t this final; Patrick was fucking with him. That’s what he hoped for, even though it was ridiculous. 

He thought about William and Gabe and Joe; especially about Joe and their embarrassing attempt at sex last night. He was on his last cigarette and savored the taste of nicotine in his lungs. After a few more disgusting slugs of vodka, he made a feeble attempt to stop feeling so sorry for himself, drove to the nearest 7/11 for smokes and then to his mom’s house. She was at the door before Jon had even locked the car; he couldn’t tell if she looked more worried or angry – on seeing his disheveled appearance and downcast eyes, she softened and Jon told himself to just suck it up or else she’d try and convince him to move back in with her. 

“What on earth happened, honey? I’ve been try’na get a hold of you, why didn’t you answer my calls, oh my god, you look so thin, do you need something to eat?” 

Jon ignored her ramblings and wrapped his mother in a tight hug. 

“Oh, Jon, what’s happened? I tried to call Patrick too, but he didn’t pick up either.” 

Jon held onto his mom until she pushed back and looked into his eyes, her face concerned. 

“Yeah, we-” he started. “I think – I think it’s over.” 

“Why?” his mom almost wailed. “Is it because you lost your job? I know how hard that was on the two of you, but I offered to help pay your rent, honey. Patrick’s so nice… Why would you finish it?” 

This is why he hadn’t come to see him mom until now. She’d automatically jumped to the conclusion that the break-up was her son’s fault, that sweet, innocent Patrick with his cute little smile would never do anything to warrant a break-up. 

“Mom,” he said, still in a half-hug, his hands on her arms. “He finished it. He broke up with me.” 

“Oh, Jon,” his mom cried, pushing her head into his chest and starting to cry. “What did you do?” 

Jon rolled his eyes and struggled out of her embrace. 

“ _I_ didn’t do anything.” He walked past her into the kitchen, itching for a cigarette. He found it hard to talk to his mom about serious issues unless he had something to occupy his hands. He heard her approach behind him. 

“I’ve just made some soup. You don’t look like you’ve eaten in days, honey. Here.” She started fussing over him, rooting around in the cupboards for a bowl. Mother’s Intuition – he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days; a granola bar on Saturday morning and a few slices of pizza at Travis’s last night. She placed the bowl of soup down on the table and told him to sit. He sat, but he wasn’t hungry. He stirred the soup around the bowl for a few minutes, took a couple of mouthfuls to appease her and then pushed it away. 

“I’ll save it for later,” he told her, walking toward the back door and standing out on the step to smoke. 

“What happened? I couldn’t believe it when I logged onto Facebook this morning, I thought it was a joke…” 

“Yeah,” Jon said, his voice bitter. “It’s not.” He inhaled on his cigarette and hugged himself, looking out into his mom’s frost bitten garden. “He’s been seeing someone else.” 

His mom sat in stunned silence for a bit. “What do you mean, _seeing someone else_? Who?” 

“A guy we knew, one of Joe’s old friends. He used to hang around for a bit a little while ago and uh, yeah.” 

“Oh.” His mother sounded as if he’d told her there wasn’t any milk in the refrigerator. “Do you know for certain?” She was still refusing to believe that Patrick was capable of such a thing. 

“He told me himself. Mom,” he looked back over his shoulder at her, “he’s been fucking someone else for two years, he’s not the perfect little prince you thought he was.” 

“Jon,” his mom’s voice quaked – she looked more distressed that he’d used the F-word. He smoked in silence, waiting for his mother to speak again. “Two _years_?” she cried. “I don’t believe you.” 

“Don’t believe me, but that’s the truth. He had us both fooled, huh?” he dropped his cigarette end to the floor and stubbed it out with his sneaker, pulling another out of his jacket pocket and lighting up. 

“Jon, you shouldn’t smoke so much.” 

“I shouldn’t breathe so much,” he laughed, bitterly. 

“What happened, how did you find out?” 

Jon took a deep breath and sighed. Thinking about Patrick’s face in the car that morning, how he’d just turned to Jon and come straight out with the words; _it’s over. I think we should break up._  

“I was driving him to school on Wednesday morning and we’d had an argument the night before because he didn’t think I was doing enough to get another job, which I guess he was right about that, but it turned into this big deal for him and so I slept on the couch and then the next morning, I thought things were fine but he was pissed because we were late leaving the house and then got stuck in traffic and he was going to be late to school and he just said it – that he wanted to break up.” Jon paused at the memory. He hadn’t known what to say. He figured Patrick was still angry and under slept from the night before, but he’d been insistent that their relationship was over, and had been, he said, for a long time. 

“So he told you then; he told you he’d been seeing this guy?” 

He shook his head, inhaling hard on his cigarette. “I just dropped him off at school and he said he needed some space and that he’d call me and so I went over to my friend Bill’s place and told him and then tried to call Patrick, but he switched his phone off and then he called me Friday, asking me to meet him at Starbucks after he got off work, so I did and I asked him before, I asked if there was anyone else involved and he said no and then when we went for coffee he told me he’d been seeing this fucking manic-depressive creep who used to hang out with us – and at first he said it’d been going on for four months and then I went over to the apartment yesterday and he admitted it’d been going on close to two years. So I guess I’m done with him. _Not_ a nice guy, after all,” he finished, biting his lip. He turned back to his mother, who was staring at him in wide-eyed shock. 

“But he was always so lovely. I always thought he was so good for you. He was so _sensible_ ,” she told him. 

Jon rolled his eyes again and shook his head. _Fuck that_ , Patrick got sensible after meeting Pete Wentz. Jon’s mother had this impression that Patrick was this flawless little angel who could do no wrong. She thought they were good together because Patrick kept her son level and off drugs, but the truth was is that Jon had just gotten better at hiding it; and Patrick was perhaps even sneakier than he was, because no one ever suspected Patrick. They’d done coke together every weekend for about four and a half years. They’d done speed and E and ketamine together, smoked weed almost every day. Patrick had an innocent face, but he’d been just as bad as Jon at one point. 

 “Yeah well, he’s also a cheat and a liar and he made a total fool out of me for two years, so…” 

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” his mom told him, in a way only a mom can. She wrapped her arms around his body and he leant down to kiss the top of her head. 

“Me too. I really loved him, mom.” Jon felt his nose start to tickle again and blinked his eyes against the threat of tears. 

“I know,” she replied, her voice muffled into his coat. “So did I, but you’ll be okay. You’re a good boy and I’m sure one day Patrick will wake up alone and realize he’s made a big mistake.” 

Jon sighed and stubbed his cigarette out on the brick wall, pulling away from his mother’s tight embrace. 

“Where’re you staying?” 

“At Joe’s. He’s got a spare bedroom. His house is clean,” he told her. She pouted. 

“Come home. You look like you haven’t eaten a proper meal in days.” 

“No. I’m good,” he told her, scratching at his beard, not making eye contact. “I’ll probably start looking for jobs tomorrow. And Joe’s cool anyway, you know… he’s –” he shrugged. “He’s a friend.” 

“Joe’s that Jewish boy you used to hang out with when you were a teenager? Didn’t he get a DUI?” she asked. 

“No,” Jon lied. “That was someone else. Thanks though – for the offer, but…” he trailed off, not really knowing how to explain that the reason he wanted to stay with Joe was so he could do lots of drugs and not get into trouble. 

“I’m your mom. I’m always here. I know you don’t want to live with me again after all this time on your own – you’ve always been so independent, never wanted me around when you were a kid. I understand. But I’m here, if ever you just need a hug.” 

Jon smiled and let his mom hug him again. Over her shoulder he felt his eyes sting as they settled on the pictures on his mom’s refrigerator. Him and Patrick, smiling and happy – and fucking dumb and clueless, he reminded himself, wrapping his arms tighter around his mother. 


	7. Chapter 7

It had started to rain, a hard and unforgiving city downpour that managed to soak Jon right through in the time it took him to dash from his car, halfway down the block, to Joe’s front door. He knocked agitatedly, eager to be let inside. The beat-up white Toyota Corolla in Joe’s driveway was one he didn’t recognize and he knocked again before Joe pulled the door open and ushered him inside. 

Jon caught sight of a boy sat on Joe’s couch – and a boy he was, because the kid didn’t look a day over seventeen. Jon, as a teacher, was good at estimating young people’s ages – Joe; not so much. He nodded in greeting and pulled his wet coat from his body, hanging it up on the radiator by the stairs. 

“Uh, Cooper, this is a friend of mine – Jon. Jon, this is Cooper, he’s uh,” and Joe trailed off, pushing his hand through his abundance of thick curls, “a friend. From work.” 

Jon furrowed his brows in Joe’s direction and out of sight of Cooper Joe shrugged, helplessly, his eyes looking concerned, as if he’d just been caught doing something he shouldn’t. 

“Hey,” Jon mumbled, not bothering to lean forward to shake the young boys hand. He flashed Joe an inquisitive little look before disappearing into the kitchen. 

Joe was some youth worker helping troubled teens from disadvantaged backgrounds find their path in life. He was constantly preparing anti-drugs seminars, anti-drinking talks, and urging young teenagers not to feel pressured into having sex too soon. Jon found it funny. Joe certainly didn’t practice what he preached. He was the _do as I say, not as I do_ guy and Jon wondered about this Cooper boy – a mass of loose, blond curls on his head and a clean-cut face. _Seventeen_ , Jon guessed, _but only just._  

He listened to their conversation flowing into the kitchen from the living room. Cooper was talking about some hard-core local punk band who were playing some all-ages show in a venue down the road later tonight and Jon could imagine his friend sitting there, pretending to be interested in this boy’s words, perhaps even curling one of his blond locks around his finger, just so he could bang him. 

Jon kind of hoped that wasn’t the case – having to lie in bed and listen to his friend fuck one of his underage youth kids was a super depressing thought. Jon smoked for a bit and then got bored trying to ignore the seduction happening in the living room. He popped his head around the door and immediately drew back. 

Joe’s hand was down young Cooper’s pants, gripped around his dick and he was leaning over him, whispering something into the boy’s ear, Joe’s dark curls hiding his partners face. 

He remembered the bottle of vodka and pulled it out of his coat pocket, ambling back into the kitchen to find a glass. Joe’s place was nicely kept – his kitchen was almost immaculate but only because Joe probably never used it. 

Patrick had always teased Jon about being OCD. He wasn’t – he just liked things to be clean and got pissed when Patrick left dirty cups and plates all over the house. He cleaned the toilet and the kitchen once a day, but that wasn’t OCD, that was just good housekeeping. At William’s house the clutter and the dirt got to him, when he was alone in the kitchen or the living room, he’d find himself looking around, trying to shove things into drawers and throw away old take-out containers, but Joe’s house was okay. The floor needed sweeping, but Jon could ignore it. 

He sipped on his vodka – Joe had nothing to mix with it and a refrigerator void of food – classic bachelor. He’d been living the good life with Patrick, he realized. 

After almost half an hour, Joe and his friend appeared in the hallway, Joe caught Jon’s eye and bit his bottom lip, thrusting his hips behind an oblivious Cooper, as if to say, _yeah, I got some._ Jon rolled his eyes and looked down into his glass of vodka. He listened to the two of them exchanging goodbyes on the doorstep and to Joe’s promise that he’d call. _Jeez, if this is what dating’s like these days, I’m better off single,_ he thought. 

Joe walked into the kitchen with a grin on his face. Jon smiled – through the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. 

“Who’s your friend?” he asked, nodding towards the door. 

Joe laughed. “Kid from Youth. Cute, huh?” 

Jon shrugged and tried to hide his smile. Joe was reaching for the bottle of vodka, reading the back and asking if he could share. He sat down opposite Jon after pulling a clean mug out of the cupboard and filling it halfway. 

“D’you ID him before fucking him or what?” 

“I didn’t fuck him,” Joe said, nonchalantly. “It was hard not to, but you turned up earlier than I was expecting.” 

“So it’s my fault?” Jon took another sip of his drink and smiled at his friend. 

“Almost had it in the bag, dude.” Joe folded his arms on the kitchen table. “’Til you turned up.” 

“How old was he, anyway?” 

“Eighteen,” Joe shrugged, still grinning. 

“Really.” 

“Yeah and I mean, seventeen, eighteen, what’s the difference?” 

“Uh, about 12 months in jail,” Jon retorted, because hell, he knew the laws. “What are you, this boy’s youth worker or what? You’d better be careful.” 

“Alright, Mr. Moral Superior.” Joe looked a little irritated but Jon decided to pursue the topic. 

“Jailbait, dude.” 

“Yeah, okay. Whatever, man,” Joe bit. Jon took a tiny bit of pleasure in winding him up. “Lest we forget, _you’re_ the one who got fired from his job for, what was it, _disorderly conduct.”_

“Least I wasn’t fucking my students.” 

Joe laughed and shook his head, swirling the vodka around in his mug. “It’s not like I do that job so I can screw the boys there. I didn’t purposefully go out and get a job I knew would get me tons of young dick, y’know?” Joe looked at Jon as if to say; _you know?_ Emphasis on the _you._ “Just; everyone’s fucking bisexual or bi-curious these days and there’s all these girls, you know, man? Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old and they all fucking love me, dude – and I find myself almost flirting with them, especially the older ones, because I know nothing would ever happen between myself and the girls, but some of the boys there, dude, fuck me.” Joe shook his head in frustration and Jon tried to not feel uneasy. “That one; Cooper – he’s out and proud and he gets plenty bullied because of it from some of the other kids there, but he just doesn’t give a fuck. He’s got an uncut cock.” 

“Yeah,” Jon started, ignoring his friend’s admission. “You should probably try and keep you dick in your pants. That’s jail time if anyone finds out – you being in a position of authority and all that.” Jon stubbed out his cigarette. 

“Pete posted a picture of him and Patrick on Facebook,” Joe told him, changing the subject. 

“I don’t care,” Jon lied, his muscles tensing up. 

“I think it’s an old one though. Patrick looked kinda fat.” 

Jon dropped his eyes down to the kitchen table and bit his lip as Joe continued. 

“I always sort of wondered what you saw in Patrick, and then he lost all that weight and I was like _damn, dude. Now I see it_.” 

Jon fixed his friend with his eyes and tried to stare him out. “Can we stop talking about him, please? I’m fed up of _thinking_ about him, I don’t want to talk about him every five minutes too.” 

Joe shrugged and pulled at his long hair. “Sorry,” he muttered, taking a big slug of vodka. 

“I mean, Patrick put on some weight during our time together, but he was still a nice person. Just because he was a bit-” but Jon fell short, deciding not to continue with his insult. “He was a nice guy.” 

“Well, no, he wasn’t, because he was screwing someone else for one third of your relationship. So he really _wasn’t_ a nice guy, was he?” Joe bit, standing up and finishing the rest of his vodka, swilling his cup out in the sink. 

Jon scratched his beard and sighed. “I guess not. I’d really love to knock the shit out of Pete though,” he added, as an afterthought. 

“And get your ass arrested, on top of dumped and fired and homeless?” Joe looked at him pointedly, leaning back against the sink. “And anyway, Pete’s not the cheat. Patrick is. If anything you should want to knock Patrick out. I know I do. Lying little prick.” 

Jon sighed and poured himself another vodka. 

“We’re going out tonight. We’re meeting Gabe and Bill at the bar, in,” Joe looked at his cellphone, “an hour. _Dude_ , William, eh?” Joe waggled his eyebrows Jon’s way. “Getting fucked last night on my couch; he was fucking loud, right? Apparently that guy’s a fiend in bed.” 

 _Joe Trohman, everybody, and his one-track mind_ , Jon chimed silently, thinking about how William’s moans and groans had echoed from the living room, up the stairs and into Joe’s bedroom last night as they tried to fuck. He was thankful to Joe for not mentioning their abysmal attempt at sex. 

“I always wondered, what’s your role in bed? I mean, what are you, verse? I always pegged you as a top and then last night we just seemed to be in a situation where you were ready to get fucked by me and I mean, I was kinda surprised, because I could never imagine you getting fucked by Patrick.” 

Jon blinked _. So much for not mentioning the failed sex last night, Joe, thanks._

He shrugged, trying not to read too much into Joe’s intrusive question. “I usually topped – nearly all the time actually, but I mean, he fucked me before – a few times. I like getting fucked though, I just guess it depends on who I’m with.” 

Joe nodded, his lips quirking up into a knowing half-smile. Jon already felt like he’d said too much. Like this would somehow be used against him later on down the road. 

“So, with me? You wanted to get fucked? You wanted me to fuck you?” 

Jon turned red and let a nervous laugh escape his lips. “We were both high, dude-” 

His friend cut him off. “Don’t give me that bullshit. You wanted me to fuck you,” he smiled, knowingly. “How much of my dick d’you think you could take?” he asked, raising his chin in Jon’s direction. 

Jon laughed and made an effort to move out of his chair. “Dude – come on.” He hoped Joe’s question was a rhetorical one, because he didn’t really want to answer _probably about seven and a half inches, man. I don’t know._ He didn’t want to give his big-dicked friend the pleasure. 

Jon stood with his back to Joe, trying to control the blush in his cheeks. He chugged the last of his vodka, hoping to blame it on the alcohol. He felt Joe step behind him, push his crotch into his ass. Jon tensed up automatically. 

“You’re giving me a stiffy,” Joe commented from behind him. “It’s always guys like you who can take my whole cock up their ass; because you’re a man and you wouldn’t want to admit it hurts. Boys like Copper – I gotta be gentle with. Don’t tell me you’re not up for a rough _fuck_.” 

Jon hummed in response, not wanting to commit himself to an answer but pushed his body back into Joe’s hard dick. He didn’t really know what else to do after his friend stepped back, so he just walked out the kitchen and up the stairs to get changed, wondering how much longer he’d be able to dissuade Joe’s advances as he ignored his straining erection pressing up against his thigh. 


	8. Chapter 8

In all the time Jon had been a friend of Joe’s, he’d never known him to have a relationship with anybody. Jon had never really been aware of him hooking up with anyone either, but after a few more days staying with his friend, Jon realized that his friend got plenty of dick – and not just from disadvantaged Chicago teenagers, either. 

Joe was obsessed with sex. Everything he said eventually led to a conversation about it, littered with dirty, in-depth descriptions that always started with _this one boy…_ or _Once, a few years/months/weeks ago…_

Jon wondered how many of Joe’s stories were true – a lot of them sounded made-up or second hand, but after living at his friend’s house for little under a week, he realized that Joe was managing several relationships with young men he’d met online, as well as a few with various people he knew from the Chicago gay scene – not all of them were seventeen year old boys, but the majority of them were under twenty-one, and, Joe said, all of them were very eager to please. 

“So, I’ve got this kid balanced on my cock, right, and he takes the whole thing and he’s riding me,” Joe did the motion and continued with his story as Jon smoked and flipped through a music magazine. “He told me he was a virgin, but by this point I’m pretty sure he’s not – he’s like, nineteen, I think – and so he’s riding me and it’s all going good and he’s jerking himself off as he bounces up and down on my dick and it’s great – I’m just lying there, head back, eyes closed and he’s all like, out of nowhere; _I wanna call you daddy. Daddy fuck me from behind!”_

Jon looked up from his magazine and fixed his friend with a quizzical expression. 

“The phrase, _daddy fuck me from behind,_ should not be said, ever, let alone during sex,” Jon told him; turning back to an interview with some Swedish death metal band he’d never heard of. “Joe, buddy, I think I’ve heard enough.” 

His friend ignored his protestations. “So, I’m there thinking; _this is a little weird,_ but I fuck him from behind and I’m fucking pounding him and he’s whimpering _ooh daddy, harder, faster…_ and then afterwards; after we’d both come, I’m like, _what the fuck’s up with that, dude?_ And he tells me his father used to make him give him head when he was young and now he’s confused about needing a similar _father figure_ in his life…” Joe finished, as if announcing the punch line in a joke. 

“That’s disgusting.” Jon told him – and it was. “Was he another one of you disadvantaged inner city kids?” 

Joe laughed. “Nah. I met him online, but it was a one-time thing, you know? I can’t be getting involved with fuck ups like that, I mean, can you imagine – your dad forcing you to give him blowjobs and actually kind of liking it?” 

 _No,_ Jon thought. _Never._

His own father lived in Springfield, Illinois, some 200 miles away from Chicago and Jon had always hated it there, so acted like the distance was way bigger than it was so he’d have an excuse not to go visit at Christmas and Thanksgiving. It wasn’t that he and his dad didn’t get along, it was just that his father loved his second family way more than he’d ever loved his first and his step-mom, a once-beautiful girl-next-door type who’d since had too much plastic surgery, didn’t like him. 

There wasn’t really too much to say about Jon’s dad; he’d always paid child support and sent birthday cards with one hundred, sometimes two hundred dollars stuffed guiltily inside. He turned up to Jon’s graduation and he’d met Patrick briefly, asking Jon later that day suspicious questions about their friendship. 

“So, what are you, _gay_?” he asked after two beers. “You don’t look gay. Neither does your… _friend_.” 

“Well; we are. Sorry I’m not some flaming homo. I thought you knew.” 

Jon’s father had huffed awkwardly, shaking his head – probably wondering what he’d done wrong to end up with a gay son. He never said as much, but Jon knew he probably blamed himself for being such an absent father figure – as if too much mollycoddling from his mom had somehow skewed his sexuality. Jon’s father ignored it; his relationship with Patrick had been like the elephant in the room on the few occasions they’d both gone down to visit. He still called Patrick _your friend,_ as if giving him a name gave their relationship some kind of credibility. 

His mother on the other hand had been ecstatic to have a gay son, as if that somehow meant shopping trips and brunch dates to talk about boys. Jon was straight-acting and he liked it that way. He was just a regular dude who enjoyed fucking other guys. 

“Do you talk to your dad at all?” Jon asked his friend. He remembered Joe’s dad being an asshole alcoholic, whose whole family had eventually deserted because of his cruel mouth and eager fists. 

“No. Jesus. I don’t even know where he lives these days.” Joe shrugged and reached forward to pack a bowl in his weed pipe, his blue eyes suddenly downcast. “I wouldn’t even bother pissing on him if he was on fire.” 

Joe’s father had apparently beaten the shit out of him when he was a kid; constantly, since he was about four or five. 

“He caught me once, sucking off this guy from school, when I was seventeen. He hadn’t hit me for years, but he seemed to twig that I was a faggot; he didn’t remember my birthday, but he knew I was gay before I’d ever come out. He caught me with this guy and tried to beat on me and I fucking went off dude. I was bigger than him by then – and stronger. I probably broke his jaw.”   

Jon flipped the page of the magazine and then looked back up at his friend. He looked sad; this man who, a few minutes ago had been animatedly talking about his creepy sex experience with a nineteen year old boy with daddy-issues, was suddenly wearing his own on his sleeve. 

“Sorry.” Jon said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.” 

“If I had kids, I can’t imagine hating them for anything they did. My dad hated me from the moment I was born. I don’t hate many people, but I hate him. I can’t wait to the day I get the news that he’s dead.” 

Jon heard the venom in Joe’s voice and hummed in response. _Weird_ , he thought. Joe was always joking, always happy, never serious… 

“Do you hate Patrick? After what he did to you?” Joe asked, not looking at him, bringing his pipe up to his lips and taking a hit. 

It had been just over a week since Patrick had broken up with him and Jon still thought about him constantly. He didn’t know whether he hated him. He hated Pete, for sure, but he’d loved Patrick for six years and he couldn’t just shut those feelings down; it wasn’t like love came with an on/off switch, it wasn’t that easy. Jon sure as hell wished it was. He didn’t hate Patrick, not yet anyway. He shook his head. 

“You should. D’you think he’ll turn up at Bill’s party?” 

Jon huffed out a breath and shrugged. William’s birthday was this weekend. Jon and Patrick had obviously been invited as a couple and Jon had been hoping for over a week now that Patrick wouldn’t think it wise to turn up; especially with Pete in tow. Jon didn’t know how he’d react to that. He didn’t hate Patrick, but he certainly didn’t like him enough anymore to keep his mouth closed if he were to show up at Jon’s best friend’s birthday party. 

“We should go together, like a date. Piss him off,” Joe suggested, taking another hit of weed before passing it over to Jon. 

Since the evening they'd tried to have sex on poppers Jon had slept in the spare bedroom and Joe had kept to his room. Joe hadn’t accosted him in the kitchen, or pressed his erection into him, but he asked personal sex-related questions all the time, and Jon would try and answer him honestly, because his friend was easy to wind up and he enjoyed watching Joe squirm, hanging on his every word as they swapped sex stories. 

“That probably wouldn’t work though – because Patrick’s with Pete now, so it’s not like he even cares what I do.” 

“He’ll care,” Joe assured him, cockily. 

“Well, it’s not like he’s even gonna be there, right? I’d be surprised if he had the balls to show up,” Jon noted, taking a long hit of weed and relaxing on the couch. It was Thursday and William’s party weekend kicked off tomorrow. Patrick wouldn’t be there, Jon told himself. He may be a cheat and a liar, but he’s not that much of a dickhead that he’d want to ruin the whole evening for Jon and his friends.

 

* * *

 

“I just – oh my god.” Jon turned around from the bar and glared. “Bill, I’m sorry, I just can’t be here with him. _Them.”_ He gripped his beer bottle tight in his fingers and felt his body shake in anger – or was it jealousy? Or was this what hate felt like? He turned back to the bar and took a slug of beer. 

“It’s my _birthday._ I want you here. Fuck them,” William said, waving a limp wrist in their direction. “Everyone wants _you_ here. Not them.” 

“I just can’t believe they turned up. What the fuck, they’re some kind of official couple now? Literally _nine_ days after finishing with me, and they both have the goddamn gall to show their faces tonight. I’m gonna go home.” _Home, back to Joe’s, whatever._ He finished his beer. 

“Don’t go home. Then they win.” 

“William, they’ve already won.” 

Patrick and _Pete!_ Jon shook his head, angrily. They’d turned up an hour after the rest of the party and for that hour Jon had thought he was safe – that he could drink and maybe take a few lines of coke without having to worry about the repercussions of having to deal with Patrick and his new boyfriend – or not quite-so-new boyfriend, as it turns out, he told himself. He couldn’t believe they’d turned up – _together_ , Pete grinning like a Cheshire Cat who’d got the cream and Patrick, awkward by his side. No one had seen Pete in over a year and the group of friends had fallen into a hushed silence as the two stood on the outskirts of the birthday party, all eyes falling on Jon and then sneaking back to Patrick and Pete. 

“Happy birthday, man. It’s been a while.” And Pete had given William’s shoulder a hard squeeze, looking around the table, that stupid grin on his face, pulling his cheeks up. Jon and Patrick had caught each other’s eyes and this time, Patrick was the first one to look away. 

“What the fuck are _they_ doing here?” Joe had asked out loud, loud enough that Patrick and Pete could hear. William hushed him and Jon sat, chewing his lip. He’d rather take a gunshot to the head right now than be sat in a bar, looking at his cheating ex. 

“Joe, hey, what’s up?” Pete spoke. Jon wanted to fucking punch him. 

“Don’t talk to me,” Joe told Pete. “You’ve got some fucking balls, Patrick.” 

Patrick blushed and turned to Pete. “We should go. I told you this wasn’t a good idea.” 

“Baby,” Pete whispered back. Jon wanted to jump out of his seat and smash a bottle into his face. “We’ll just stay for a few drinks.” He laughed, “I’m sober, so if anyone needs a designated driver at the end of the night…” he trailed off, forcing a laugh at his own ridiculous suggestion as the rest of the group fell deeper into an awkward silence. 

Jon pushed himself up from his chair. He wasn’t going to sit here like a fucking idiot and listen to Pete try and make jokes. Joe caught his hand as he tried to squeeze past. 

“Hey. Stay,” his voice quiet and soothing. His thumb brushed over Jon’s knuckles and he looked up at Jon from his seat. His touch was almost tender. Everyone looked. Jon shook his hand free and walked to the bar. He ordered another beer and then William had approached him, patting his shoulder and telling him he should stay. Jon shook his head. He couldn’t. 

“I didn’t think they’d turn up. I haven’t spoken to Patrick since you and he… you know. I didn’t think about un-inviting him.” 

Jon sighed. “Where does he get off; Pete Wentz? What, it’s not enough that he’s been fucking my boyfriend for the past couple of years, he now suddenly wants to start hanging out with my friends again? He’s lucky I didn’t punch his fucking lights out.” 

William rubbed his arm, he felt someone else approach behind them, a long, tattooed arm wrapped around his neck and then Joe’s mouth was against his ear, pulling him tight into his body. 

“Meet me in the bathroom,” he whispered. Jon watched him walk away; all hair and leather jacket, tight jeans and pointy boots. 

“I’ll try and ask them to leave,” William sighed; but William was too nice to do such a thing as cause any confrontation. Jon stared as the men’s bathroom door swung to a slow close behind Joe. He nodded at William, already distracted and walked after his friend. 

“That’s fucking shitty, bro. Can you believe that?” 

Joe was taking a piss in the urinals. Jon ignored his dick as he shook it off and pushed it back into his jeans, zipping himself up. 

“I think I should probably just leave…” Jon told his friend as Joe washed his hands. 

“No way, dude. If he wants to pull dickhead moves like that, then two can play at that game, right?” He pulled a little Ziploc bag out of the inside pocket of his coat. “I’ve got coke – enough for the two of us. Let’s have a good time, man – there’s nothing that’s going to piss him off more than seeing you enjoy yourself.” 

Jon smiled sadly and nodded. Joe pushed into the one lone cubical in the bathroom and Jon followed him in, pushing against his friend so that he could close the door behind them. They snorted two lines each, huddled close together in that cramped cubical and for some reason, Jon’s dick started to get hard; maybe the immediate effects of the coke, maybe being so close to Joe. He tried not to think about it. 

“Fuck ‘em. I want you here.” The silence that followed wasn’t really silence, but neither of them said anything for a few moments. The two men stared at each other and Joe stepped closer, forcing Jon to step back against the cubical wall. Joe’s hand reached up, rubbing over Jon’s rough beard and they were close now, their bodies pressed against each other, Jon’s back against the wall… Jon felt his friend’s semi-hard erection pressing into his and he gripped Joe’s elbow, pulling their chests together. Joe bent down slightly, bringing their faces in line and Jon closed his eyes. 

He felt Joe’s lips on his and so knew it was his friend who’d made the first move and not him. Their mouths parted almost immediately, Joe’s tongue slipping inside Jon’s mouth. He tasted of smoke and saliva and not much else. The kiss was slow, but it was forceful. Joe’s hair was tickling Jon’s cheeks and he reached up to pull it off his face, to hold it between his fingers. 

Kissing Joe was a lot different from kissing Patrick. Patrick was always clean-shaven, for starters. Patrick was gentle, sometimes desperate. Needy. Joe was strong – like what kissing a man should be; willful, their kiss was one of equals, neither of them particularly taking the lead. Joe drew back and gave Jon a nod. That was it. 

“You ready?” he asked, flicking open the bolt on the door. Jon nodded a yes; worried that if he spoke his voice would betray him. Joe gave him a smile and Jon followed him out. All eyes were on them when they returned to the party. 


	9. Chapter 9

“So, what’s going on between you and Joe?” Gabe asked Jon, who was stood at the bar, staring alternately between Patrick and Pete who were sat talking to an old school friend of William’s, and Joe, who was schmoozing William’s beautiful sister. 

“Nothing. Why?” Jon was high and his jaw was beginning to clench. He tried his hardest to relax it and would manage for only a half minute before he’d realize it was clenched again. 

Gabe gave a little look as if he didn’t believe him. “No reason.” 

“Why, what’s going on with you and William?” he almost snapped. William was draped over Travis tonight. Jon always thought Gabe was the most handsome of their group of friends and he and William made a ridiculously good-looking couple. Travis was his drug-dealer; he didn’t think it sensible to hook up with your drug dealer, even if it _was_ just for the occasional fuck. 

Gabe laughed and Jon’s attention was brought back to Pete and Patrick sat in the corner of the bar, Pete’s hand on Patrick’s thigh, leaning over to whisper in his ear. When Patrick looked up and caught his eye, Jon looked away, back towards Joe who was laughing and joking, the conversation between him and William’s sister flowing freely. 

“What d’you mean?” Gabe asked, but he knew exactly what Jon meant, because he gave this cheeky smile and looked down at the drink in his hand. Jon rolled his eyes. “We hook up when we’re both feeling horny. Nothing wrong with that, right?” he asked and Jon shook his head. “There’d be no harm in you and Joe doing the same kinda thing either.” Jon looked at him, unamused. “Now you’re single.” 

“Yeah. Well. Joe and I don’t hook up.” The other week when Joe had tried to fuck him before he passed out on the poppers didn’t count and neither did the kiss just now in the bathroom; whatever the fuck that meant, probably nothing. Jon sniffed. The coke was kicking in hard. 

“He’s got a massive dick, you know. So I’ve heard.” 

“Yeah,” he replied, before breaking into a laugh. He looked over at Joe. William’s sister was touching his hair, smiling, pulling at his curls. Jon caught his eye and nodded an acknowledgement. There was something about Joe; Jon didn’t know what it was, but he suspected it had something to do with his supreme confidence, that punk-rock attitude that had always gotten Joe into trouble when he was a kid living with his father had turned him into a enigmatic adult. Charisma – Joe had bucket loads of it and Jon could at least agree that charisma was attractive. 

Jon guessed it was easy to be confident and overtly sexual when you had a huge dick. Joe had been flirting with him, he decided. Definitely. He watched through his cocaine high as Joe approached him and Gabe at the bar. Joe’s eyes were shining, pupils huge. 

“Coming outside for a smoke?” Joe placed both hands on Jon’s shoulders, leaning into his ear to ask the question. Gabe scoffed at the pair, nursing his vodka or gin or whatever he was drinking and smiled. When Jon pulled back to answer, his dick was stiffening in his pants again and so he nodded, the close proximity to Joe making his temperature rise in his cheeks – or maybe that was the coke. It was probably the coke. 

Patrick watched them both leave from the other side of the bar and flinched when Pete made a grab to hold his hand.

 

* * *

 

Once outside, Jon was bombarded with a babbling stream of incoherence as Joe talked at him, obviously feeling the high a little more than Jon was. He talked about William’s sister, about how beautiful she was and stepped up close to Jon to light his cigarette off Jon’s already burning one. 

“We could fuck,” Joe said, suddenly, after he stepped back and exhaled his drag. “We should. There’s too much tension between us, even Gabe said so; we should fuck and get it over with and see how we feel after.” He looked down pensively and squared his jaw. “What d’you think?” 

He hadn’t had to flirt with anyone in over six years and Joe had never talked to him like this before, so it wasn’t as if Jon was used to his out-spoken theories about how sexual tension should just be nipped in the bud before it got too out of hand. 

“I didn’t think I was your type. I thought I was too old for you.” 

Joe laughed; too loud and stepped into Jon again. His hand nestled around Jon’s neck, his fingers pushing into his hair at the back of his ear. “I like _men_ who know how to fuck and I like _boys_ who I can _teach_ to fuck. You’re the former.” 

“You seem to have a lot of confidence in me, I wouldn’t want to let you down.” Jon smiled, taking another drag from his cigarette. Joe was stood against him now. Jon’s heart rate was picking up; this wasn’t even a gay bar. He tried to act cool, but Joe was leaning down into his ear again, his words hot as they spilled out of his mouth. 

“Oh, you’re the former, definitely; a little pricktease. I saw your video; how you swallowed his dick and you looked good. Hot.” They were attracting attention, but Jon was two lines of cocaine past caring. “You should kiss me,” Joe continued. His eyes flicked up towards the window behind Jon. “He’s watching. Let me fucking kiss you.” 

Jon’s heart thumped in his chest. The anticipation or the heartbreak or the coke? Jon wasn’t sure – probably a mixture of the three. He held Joe’s blue eyes with his gaze and felt him step into his body, their lips connected, quicker this time than they had in the bathroom and this kiss was somehow hotter, what being out in the open. They didn’t make out, their tongues didn’t stray into each other’s mouths this time, but Jon wanted it. He wanted Joe’s big dick down his throat, to prove to himself he was still desirable, that he still had it in him to make someone else come, to turn someone else on. 

Joe pulled back, his hand lingering at the nape of Jon’s neck before he stepped away. He lifted his cigarette to his mouth and continued smoking, a grin pulling at his lips. Jon looked at his toes and tried to hide his own smile. 

“Oh, shit, here he comes.” 

Jon jerked his head up to see Patrick stood to his side. He should have just snarled at him to fuck off, fisted his hands through Joe’s hair and made out with him right then and there, because Joe would go for it, Jon was sure, but his words died in his throat and Patrick was the first to speak. 

“Can I have a word in private?” he asked, his voice quiet and unsure. Almost pleading. 

Jon looked up at Joe and gave him a nod that said; _I’ll be fine,_ a lie, but necessary if he wanted Joe to leave them alone for five minutes. Joe held his gaze for a moment before taking his leave. He bumped roughly into Patrick’s shoulder as he swaggered past, looking back at him as he re-entered the bar. Patrick didn’t say anything for a little while, just kept his eyes focused on the concrete sidewalk and chewed his lip. 

Jon flicked his burnt out cigarette end to the ground and lit up another one before Patrick started to speak. Smoking was his distraction, he needed something to do with his hands so that they wouldn’t wrap around Patrick’s neck and throttle him, or worse, clasp in prayer and start begging him to change his mind. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“I bet you are,” Jon bit. 

“About tonight. I didn’t want to come. Pete was insistent.” 

“So, you’re together now? How sweet. Has he moved into our apartment yet, or are you going to give it a few weeks to let the break-up set in?” 

“Jon…” Patrick sighed. “He’s not living with me. We’re not living together, I mean. He’s uh, keen, but…” he trailed off. “I know you hate me. I know all the guys do now too, but I just want to be sure you’re okay – looking after yourself. Bill told me you’re staying at Joe’s. You two hooking up, or what?” 

“Patrick, you’re not my friend, I don’t owe you any gossip; you broke up with me, remember? What I do now has got fuck all to do with you anymore. I’m amazed you turned up. You’ve got more balls than I would in your situation.” 

Patrick was looking at the ground, kicking at Jon’s discarded cigarette butt. “I really fucked up. I’ve wanted to call you, but I knew you wouldn’t answer and I wanted to say all this stuff to you, but I didn’t know how to say it and…” 

“And now you’ve made you bed, Patrick, and now you lay in it – without me, because you chose him.” 

“Well,” Patrick sniffed, eyes still locked on the ground. _Motherfucker can’t even look at me,_ Jon shook his head. “Joe’s nice – and… uh, I mean, if you two were to hook up, or whatever, I wouldn’t mind. I mean, it wouldn’t be a big deal. It’s just – a little soon.” 

“Fucking hell, Patrick,” Jon swore, losing his cool. “A little soon? You’re going to stand in front of me and tell me it’s a little soon to fuck someone else? Are you kidding me, because I’ll tell you how soon is too soon; two years before you dump someone is too soon. Lie after lie after lie, Patrick, but no – really, I hope you and Pete in there are very happy together. I’m sure you’ll really enjoy living under his reign of terror, telling you who you can and can’t speak to, bitching at you about having a beer or having a smoke… Good luck to you; you’re gonna fucking need it.” 

“Hey. Sorry, uh. Is everything alright out here?” It was Pete, his eyes dark, his hair over-styled across his eyes like some overgrown fucking teenager, Jon thought, balling his fists together at his side. Patrick looked embarrassed that Pete had approached. Pete reached out to rub Patrick’s shoulder and Patrick pulled away. 

“Jon,” Pete nodded. “How are you?” 

 _What a facetious little prick,_ Jon cursed, his heart rate soring. He could feel his blood boil. 

“I’m great, Pete. How are you? Are you still enjoying fucking my boyfriend or has it lost a bit of spark since everyone found out?” 

“He’s not your boyfriend anymore,” Pete bit. To give him his due, he was a ballsy little fucker. Jon wouldn’t have been so sure of himself in his situation in fear of getting knocked the fuck out. 

“Pete…” Patrick protested weakly. “Come on, let’s go. This – this wasn’t a good idea to turn up here tonight.” 

“But I am enjoying fucking him still, thanks for the enquiry.” Pete had stepped up to Jon’s face, his breath falling on Jon’s lips. If Joe hadn’t have come out of the bar, closely followed by Gabe, he’d have punched him for that remark. Instead, he fixed his eyes on Patrick. 

“I think you made the right decision,” he told him. “This one’s a catch.” 

Joe was by his side, his hand on Jon’s shoulder, pulling him back. “You two need to fucking leave. No one wants you here.” 

“What, so you can put your moves on Jon? Trying to make me jealous, huh, is that the plan?” 

Joe was suddenly squaring up to Patrick, his shoulders rolled back, his palms splayed out and upturned at his side. “Come on then,” he threatened, flexing his fingers and stepping up against Patrick’s toes. “Think you can have it all, huh? Mess around with his fucker and still tell Jon what to do? You finished it, it’s over. Now, fuck off, before I beat the ever living shit out of you and your honey here.” 

“Joe…” Jon tried, “come on.” 

Joe waved him off. This was William’s birthday, he didn’t want anyone getting arrested, and despite everything, he didn’t want to see Joe punch Patrick. He wouldn’t mind seeing Pete get the shit kicked out of him, but not here, not tonight. Pete had backed down considerably; he was chewing his lip in the shadow of the street lamp. 

“You’d be re-bound. You two can get happily coked out together.”

There was silence, until Joe leaned forward, right in Patrick’s face. “Fuck off,” he spat, slowly. It was only two words but the threat hung loud in the air. It was actually pretty menacing. Jon made a grab for Joe’s wrist and pulled him away. Joe fell back from Patrick’s short frame and shook his head. He bumped past Pete in much the same fashion as he’d knocked Patrick a little while before and Jon breathed a sigh of relief when Joe pulled him past the watching tables of people and back into the bar. 

He didn’t realize his shoulders were tense until Gabe returned to the bar, informing him that Patrick had left in a taxi alone, after yelling at Pete to fuck off.

 

* * *

 

After the debacle with Patrick and Pete he’d snapped at Joe that he didn’t need him to fight his battles. Joe had snapped back that Patrick was a punk-ass little prick for turning up with Pete on his arm so soon after breaking up and he deserved everything he got. _Stop sticking up for him,_ Joe told him. _He surely didn’t expect to turn up here tonight and for no one to say anything. My loyalties lie with you,_ he said. _Not Patrick, not Pete._ So Jon had shut up after that and bought Joe a drink to say thank you. 

Halfway through the night, Jon and Joe and William had crowded into the disabled toilets of one of William’s favorite gay bars. Jon wasn’t keen on this place, it was pretty sleazy; men fucked in the bathrooms and outside in the alleyway and it was full of dark corners to snort drugs and swallow pills. Jon and Joe sniffed another line of coke each, passing the rest to William as a birthday gift. William was already flying off something Travis had given him, talking nineteen to the dozen, his pupils blown, his forehead clammy. _Speed._  

William had exited the disabled bathroom soon after, eager to get back to the dance floor, to Travis or Gabe, or whoever was paying him the most attention tonight. 

Jon and Joe had been left alone and they’d made out again against the grimy, graffiti covered wall. They probably would have fucked, but neither of them had a condom and not long after Joe started palming Jon’s cock through his jeans, someone started banging on the door and they pulled apart reluctantly. Jon watched, almost in slow motion as Joe unlocked the door and slipped out of the bathroom without another word. Jon was left willing his erection down as someone else entered, glanced his way and told him to fuck off. His body felt heavy – as if his limbs were made of stone. He managed to push himself up from against the wall and followed his friend’s lead back out into the club, the music thumping against his chest, the lights bouncing off the sea of sweaty bodies on the dance floor. 

He lost sight of Joe for the vast majority of the night and had found himself sat next to Travis in a corner, bitching about Pete and Patrick. Travis was a quiet guy, despite his tattooed, pierced appearance. William had told him once that Travis had the end of his dick pierced – that was probably the most personal thing Jon knew about Travis, but he liked him. William was on the dance floor with Gabe. _Gabe is so fucking handsome_ , Jon thought as he watched the pair dance. He turned to Travis and asked if he minded. 

“Bill and Gabe? Dancing?” 

“And fucking,” Jon added, because the coke was kicking in. 

Travis pulled his lips into his cheek and shrugged; _I do mind,_ his expression said, _but it’s Bill’s choice,_ added his shrug. 

“It’s just sex. It doesn’t mean anything. There’s no tying William down, anyway. So… you and Joe?” Travis asked, changing the subject. 

He didn’t know why people were suddenly so obsessed with him and Joe. Maybe because they all knew what Joe was like; an insatiable wild man, probably the one who got the most dick out of the lot of them – and Jon was recently single and heartbroken to match, so it figured that if they were living together they were probably sleeping together. His friends were wrong, but only slightly. _Fuck,_ Jon felt high. He was finding it hard to string his thoughts together. 

“There’s nothing going on between Joe and I.” 

“Apart from him kissing you to piss Patrick off, disappearing into the bathroom together, _twice_ tonight, there’s nothing going on, huh?” As well as being quiet, he was also observant. “Bill says he’s got a big wang,” Travis added, his voice weirdly neutral. Jon laughed. “And Bill sits on _my_ dick every other weekend so…” 

Jon smiled, the cocaine making his joints jerk. His eyes searched the crowd for Joe. He grew antsy when he couldn’t see him. Maybe he should go and dance, shake the tension out of his body… or he could just stand at the bar and get absolutely hammered, drown out his Patrick-related sorrows and then fuck Joe to cancel out any doubts that he was a lousy lover. 

“I’m sorry. About you and Patrick,” Travis told him, during the first few quiet beats of the next song. 

“Yeah...” Jon turned around and shrugged. “That’s okay. I’ll survive.” 

It was true; he would. All this pain and heartache and anger he was currently carting on his shoulders would eventually dissipate into nothing more than apathy. _Eventually_. His heart grew tight. He should go find Joe, flirt with him, suck him off in the bathroom or drag him back home for a quick, hot fuck.

 _Ha!_ _Fuck Patrick and his too-soons._


	10. Chapter 10

It was dark in Joe’s hallway when he and Jon returned home at 4AM that morning. As soon as the front door closed behind them, Joe had Jon against the wall, his hands gripping his jaw and his lips pressed against him. Joe’s knee pressed urgently into Jon’s cock and Jon, still high after another line and a half of coke, fisted his hands into Joe’s long curls, pulling at the scalp, making Joe groan against his lips, throaty and masculine; desperate. 

Jon’s head was surging – and he was definitely blaming that on the drugs. Joe’s tongue fucked his mouth and then his hand slipped down from his jaw, around his neck and slid between their bodies to the buckle of Jon’s belt. He yanked at it, and pulled back from their kiss, his blue eyes flicking down to where his hands fumbled with the buckle and then back up to focus on Jon’s mouth. 

“I’m gonna fuck you so hard,” he mumbled against Jon’s lips and it was almost a threat as he shoved Jon’s jeans down over his ass and grabbed his cock. Their foreheads pressed together, their noses touching and Jon wanted it, but didn’t know if he should just take it so willingly. _Sex_ , he reasoned. _Just sex with a friend, and that’s all it is or will be._

He was turned on and he couldn’t deny that to either himself or Joe anymore, because his growing erection was wrapped tightly in Joe’s palm. He untangled his fingers from Joe’s hair and pushed them down to his cock, cupping him in his hands. Joe’s head reeled back to look at him – his eyes looked dazed, but Jon guessed his own probably didn’t look too much different.

Joe pulled Jon away from the wall, walking him backwards into the living room and down onto the couch. He lay back, Joe on top of him and their lips connected again in a kiss. This kiss tasted like whiskey; of nicotine and whiskey and desperate, manly aggression. Patrick never tasted this raw. Jon closed his eyes and pushed all thoughts of Patrick to the back of his mind. _Fuck Patrick,_ he thought as Joe’s hand wrapped around his exposed dick and he felt his friend slide down his body and breathe over his cock. 

It had been a long time since his last blowjob. Patrick didn’t like giving them – or he stopped liking it about- Jon thought… about a year and a half ago. _Why didn’t he see the signs?_ They were all there, right in front of his fucking nose for almost two years. 

Joe’s lips wrapped around his dick and Jon felt as if his heart had dropped right into his guts. Joe’s hair fanned out over his stomach, blocking the view of his dick getting blown. Jon blinked up at the ceiling, a strip of orange light from a passing car outside travelling across the room before disappearing. 

Jon could tell Joe was most likely the receiver rather than the giver of fellatio. Jon would go down on Patrick every time they fucked. He would lick his asshole too and was rarely repaid for his actions. Patrick hardly ever sucked him off and had rimmed him only a handful of times in their six-year relationship. _Looking back, was the sex even that good,_ he pondered.Thinking about Patrick was threatening his erection, so he pushed Joe’s head back off him before he began to go flaccid in his mouth. 

“Let me try,” Jon muttered, pushing his friend back onto the opposite side of the couch and getting down on his knees on the floor. He pulled Joe’s jeans down and off around his ankles, throwing them to the side. Jon sat back on his haunches, gripping his friend’s dick at the base. It was big – the biggest tangible cock he’d ever seen – but he could manage it. He was good at blowjobs, he’d been told that by various partners in his life, not just by Patrick. He was going to deep-throat Joe’s dick, because Patrick had made him feel lousy; a lousy lover, a lousy boyfriend… he needed to prove to himself, via Joe, that he wasn’t. 

The blowjob started slow – Jon between Joe’s knees on the floor, his hand around the thick base. He ran his tongue over the head of his cock, sucking it between his lips and flattening his tongue against it. He took a few inches into his mouth and felt Joe’s hand rub at his shoulder, up around the back of his neck and into his hair. Joe’s hips pushed up slightly, his cock pushing a little further into Jon’s warm mouth. 

He pulled off after a few moments and let his tongue travel slowly down the long shaft of Joe’s dick down to where it met his balls. Joe parted his legs wide, sliding lower down onto the couch so Jon could suck them. He twisted his palm around Joe’s cock, licking over the fold of skin on his scrotum before sucking his balls into his mouth. He repeated this motion of sucking and licking in time with jerking the dick until he heard the man above him grunt and as soon as he’d elicited a reaction, he raised his head, made an _O_ with his mouth and placed it back around the tip of Joe’s cock. 

Jon heard him groan and when he flicked his eyes up to look at him, his head was resting on the back of the couch, his eyes closed. Jon’s own dick was getting hard between his legs and he lowered his mouth further down the shaft; four inches, five inches, six… Joe’s breathing hitched, Jon pulled off to suck the head of his dick again and squeeze the base between his fingers. 

Six inches, seven… 

“Holy fuck, man.” Joe’s head snapped up to watch his dick disappear into Jon’s mouth. Jon pulled off again, but not fully this time, still leaving about five inches of dick in his mouth, and then he slid down – all the way, his nose nestled against Joe’s neat pubes, his lips stretched around the thick base of his cock. 

Joe wanted to come right there and then, because his full nine-inch erection was down the back of his friend’s throat and it was a rare occurrence that someone gave him a blowjob without complaining that he was too big. 

“Christ almighty. _Fuuuuck_ …” 

Jon pulled Joe’s dick out of his mouth, stretching his jaw before going down on him again. He wanted to make Joe come – that was his goal. It took him a few seconds to push Joe’s full erection down his throat, but he managed it. Joe was above him, squirming, swearing into the darkness of his living room and Jon had to suppress a smile. Joe jerked his hips up, knocking his dick flush against the back of Jon’s throat and he gagged, but he didn’t pull away. 

“It’s been forever since anyone gave me a blowjob this fucking good,” Joe told him, and that spurred Jon on. He slid down Joe’s dick and his lips wrapped around the base. Jon pressed his face against Joe’s stomach, rolling his neck slightly to change the angle of his throat. 

At this, Joe’s words left his mouth in a rush. “Fuck me, I’m gonna come.” 

Jon pulled away slowly, replacing where his mouth once was with his fingers and began jerking him off, the tip of his friend’s dick against this tongue. 

“Can I come in your mouth?” Joe asked, throatily. 

Jon nodded, because he was high and he was turned on as fuck and he wanted to give Joe one of the best blowjobs of his life. Joe’s hand settled at the back of Jon’s head, his fingers fisting in his hair. Jon’s hand worked the dick in his mouth expertly; pulling all sorts of moans and groans from the man it belonged to. It was a few more moments before Joe came, shooting stream after stream of salty, white come onto Jon’s tongue. _Patrick never came this hard_ , he thought silently, his hand milking the last of Joe’s orgasm into his mouth. 

He sucked Joe’s dick clean as he pulled his cock out of his mouth, not making a show of swallowing his come. He didn’t taste unpleasant, just different; different to Patrick, but that figured. 

Jon sat back on his haunches, wiping the side of his mouth and stretching his jaw to relieve the ache. He looked up at Joe, who was almost horizontal on the couch, his legs spread wide to accommodate Jon between them, his half-flaccid cock bobbing back against his stomach. Joe’s eyes were hooded, a grin on his face. 

“Wow,” he sighed, and Jon smiled as if were nothing. “That was… You’re good.” 

“Thanks,” Jon shrugged, standing up and scratching his head. “Your dick is a lot bigger than I’m used to, so I might have been a little rusty.” He didn’t say it to get Joe to argue with him and compliment him on his technique, he said it simply to imply that he could do better, to get the cogs of Joe’s sex-obsessed mind spinning, to warn him; _don’t you forget about my non-existent gag-reflex, about how well I can suck dick. I didn’t lose my job for posting a video of a sub-par blowjob on the Internet. I lost it because I’m good at it and I enjoy it -_ and _I swallow._

“No, that was…” Joe’s voice was lazy with the aftershock of climax, “that was fucking awesome.” 

Jon stood there in silence for a few moments, watching Joe’s dick turn soft as he recovered from his orgasm. 

“So, are you gonna fuck me or what?” he asked eventually. He wanted it. He wanted Joe’s dick up his ass. Joe rallied himself up from the couch and stood up in front of Jon. 

“Yeah. Let me, uh – give me five minutes.” He sounded exhausted. “I’ll meet you up in the bedroom.”

 

* * *

 

Jon sat on the edge of Joe’s bed cautiously. He’d forgotten how this felt – fucking someone for the first time; all those nerves and sexual tension and lust and longing mixing together in the pit of his stomach. That over-whelming desire to impress, to not fuck up, not come too soon, to be good and tight and hard. 

The idea rattled his nerves; cocaine had always been his favorite drug to fuck on and he was still feeling the high, but not as much as he had back in the nightclub. The blowjob had sobered him up a little, but his sex drive was currently in first gear, he was raring to go. 

Joe could fuck Patrick out of him, that was for sure. 

He looked around the bedroom; it was messier than the last time he’d seen it and he tried not to let that agitate him. Joe’s nightstand was littered with empty condom wrappers – Trojan Magnums, of course – and lighters, an ashtray full of cigarette ends and scrunched up balls of come-crusted tissue. He hesitated on throwing them in the trash can, before remembering that Joe had just shot his load into his mouth, _and_ he’d swallowed, a few crusty tissues wouldn’t make much difference. He picked through the stuff on the nightstand and threw it quickly into the trash. Joe’s dirty clothes were strewn across the floor, but Jon drew the line at pushing them into the laundry basket. 

He heard Joe climbing the stairs and didn’t know what to do or how to sit without looking awkward. He hoped Joe would just take over and they wouldn’t have to say anything to each other until they woke up tomorrow morning. _All it is, is sex_ , Jon told himself again, the nerves starting to pick up inside his stomach. 

“Hey,” Joe nodded on entering his bedroom, his shirt off, his jeans pulled back on, but unbuttoned exposing his pubic hair. “Wow, you-” and he trailed off. “That was-” he stopped again, pulling his jeans down and climbing onto the bed. “Where did you learn to do that?” he asked, his body climbing over Jon’s and pushing him down on the pillow. 

“It’s a natural talent,” Jon replied stoically. 

“Yeah, fuck, that was…” Joe trailed off, his lips pressing forward onto Jon’s, his hands already eager to pull his pants off. “You swallowed my come too, what a good friend,” he teased, his palm wrapping around Jon’s dick and slowly beginning to jerk it. Their mouths pressed together again, Joe’s tongue sliding over Jon’s. “I wish I could still taste myself on you.” Jon’s dick twitched at that. 

Jon wondered if there was some kind of mutual attraction between him and Joe, if there was before – while he was with Patrick – or if this was just some pity fuck. He tried not to think too much about it. It is what it is. 

The two men fought for dominance over the kiss for a few moments, rolling together on the mattress, neither of them letting the other control the situation for too long. Jon gave up the fight once Joe took a firm grip of his wrists, holding them down on the mattress as if to say; _you stay here. I’m in charge._

“Do you want to do this face-to-face, or…” Joe pressed, his hand slipping between Jon’s legs, his fingers pressing between his ass cheeks, around his asshole. 

“Whichever,” Jon breathed – it’d been too long, way too fucking long… 

“Face-to-face it is then.” And Joe formulaically pushed his fingers inside Jon’s ass. Jon felt a bit dazed, thinking about Patrick, but then, only a few seconds after his friend’s finger entered him, rough and un-lubricated, he let out a groan and felt all rational thought slip away. 

“Have I got it there?” Joe’s voice asked, hot and low, his finger curled up again, brushing flush against Jon’s prostate – _that didn’t take him long_ , Jon thought, his stomach muscles already twitching, anxious for release. “How long since you fucked like this?” 

“A long time… a real long time,” Jon answered honestly. Joe pushed a second finger against Jon’s tight ring of muscle, slipping it in under his index finger and scissoring them. 

“How much lube d’you usually use?” Joe mumbled, trying to reach over to his nightstand with his fingers still deep inside Jon and it was a stretch, but he managed it, holding the bottle between his arm and his body and popping off the top. 

“Just… do what you want. How much do you usually use – with other guys?” 

Jon was beginning to get frustrated. _Just fuck me;_ he wanted to shout at Joe. His erection had been straining between his legs for the last half hour and he was aching for release. Joe flexed his fingers inside him again, as if reading his friend’s mind. Jon felt as if his dick was about to explode, he was so turned on. 

“That depends; on how tight you are – and how much you want it to burn,” Joe whispered, leaning forward to bite Jon’s ear. No wonder all the young boys flock to Joe.  _No fucking wonder._

“Put a condom on, I’m ready,” Jon informed him. Joe pulled his fingers out and it felt as if he pulled Jon’s guts out with them. 

“I don’t think you are,” he smiled, wiping his fingers on the bed sheet and rooting in his nightstand drawer for a condom. Jon watched with his arm flung over his eyes as Joe tore the wrapper open and rolled the Trojan down onto his dick.  

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves propping his legs up on Joe's shoulders, like Joe signaled and feeling exposed. _Don’t come too soon. Take his whole dick and don’t come too soon,_ he warned himself, biting down on his lip as he felt the head of Joe’s dick press between his ass cheeks. 

“D’you think you can handle it?” Joe asked, grinning, his hair wild on top of his head. Jon wondered if Joe got his dirty talk from watching too much porn. 

“I know I can,” he replied, challengingly. Joe grinned into Jon’s neck, his hand directing the first inch of his dick inside him, but even that was almost too much. Jon’s body jerked at the intrusion. 

“Fuck, you’re so tight. Relax for me. You need any poppers?” Joe joked. 

“No, fuck _off_ ,” Jon couldn't help but laugh. “Just shut up, man. Fuck me.” 

It was as if Jon’s words gave Joe the green light. He pushed his hips forward steadily and Jon could feel the burn; he tells himself, _that’s gotta be it. He’s got to be all the way in now…_ but Joe keeps pushing and Jon feels his body coming the fuck undone, he’s never experienced something _this_ intense before. 

“Stop.” Joe does as he’s told. “How much further?” 

His friend looks down at his dick buried in Jon’s ass. “I’m uh, about two thirds in…” 

 _Only two thirds? Fucking hell…_ Jon took another deep breath to steady himself. It felt good – too good. 

“Here,” Joe murmured and he shifted back a foot on the bed, pulling Jon with him, his head slipping off the pillow. The new angle was only slightly different, but it knocked the breath out of Jon. 

“Okay,” he starts. “Keep going, but slowly or else I’m going to come fucking everywhere…” 

“Good,” Joe bit back. “That’s the point…” 

Joe resumes his assault on Jon and it’s weird, because it’s as if he can read every tiny expression on his face, every clench of muscle around his dick. Joe’s observant, always watching and listening; slowing when needs be without a word from Jon. 

Jon feels like he’s going to pass out; he’s never felt so full and he can hardly believe he’s managed to take the whole thing when Joe leans forward into his neck and smiles; “there you go. We made it…” 

Joe’s hips start to jerk, pulling half his dick out slowly and then pushing back in – it’s a slow, steady pace at first and then it picks up. Jon can’t feel the burn anymore, just the delicious stretch and the pressure on his prostate each time Joe slams into him. 

The sex is desperately rough, the headboard of the bed hitting the wall as they fuck. They’re suddenly so in rhythm with each other, Joe’s hips pressing down as Jon’s push up. Joe’s the one working it though; he’s doing the fucking, Jon’s just getting fucked… 

“Tell me –” Joe pants, but he can’t get out much more than that. “When you’re… gonna…” 

Jon nods. “I’m close.” It’s almost a whine. 

Jon feels as if his skin is melting off his bones; every single nerve in his body is tingling, his toes curl up into the bed sheets, and all he can concentrate on is the white hot heat in his dick, his stomach, pushing up from his balls. 

“I’m… _Fuck_ ,” but he’s not there yet. _Almost_. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Jon,” Joe swears, his eyes closed, his jaw slack. He pumps into him for a few more seconds and manages to make a haphazard grab for Jon’s leaking dick – and there it is, washing over Jon like a huge white wave, up from his toes and into his asshole, his balls, his dick… Coursing through his stomach and chest, up over his head – intense – right down into his fingertips. He comes after that, his mouth unable to gasp in enough air, his vision going hazy – he didn’t think it was possible to come like this; so hard and for so long – a full body orgasm. 

Joe rides out inside him, Jon’s body fully slack as he finishes himself off. He can hardly breathe, his chest rising and falling quickly and all he can think about is that dick inside him and the man attached to it. 

“Wow. Fuck.” Joe is the first one to speak. It’s all Jon can do to just breathe and he groans as Joe pulls out, rips the used condom off his dick and ties the end in a knot. All Jon can hear is his breathing – heavy, loud in the air – and his blood, thrumming through his head. 

“Fucking… _fuck,_ I –” Jon just gave up on words. He makes a grab for the nearest t-shirt; his, thankfully, and wipes his come off his stomach, his hands still shaking as his body tries to come down from its orgasm. 

“Feeling better?” Joe asked, flopping down by his side. Jon couldn’t move his head to look at him, but he smiled, slowly, his breathing eventually slowing back to normal. His dick was still twitching, his insides pulsating. It was as if he could still feel Joe inside him. 

There was so much he wanted to say to Joe – to justify his actions, thank him for such a wonderfully intense orgasm and then to seek assurance that this was cool, they were still friends, it was just sex. Sex between friends doesn’t mean anything, right? Just look at William and Gabe and Travis… but what he wanted to say went unsaid, because Jon’s eyes were already beginning to droop, his body relaxing into the mattress. _Fuck it,_ he told himself, his final thought before drifting off to sleep. He’d been fucked into submission, his break-up heartache fading to black as he fell asleep.  


	11. Chapter 11

The next morning, Jon woke up early, his heart lurching at the memory of last night. That orgasm had been something else. He wondered why Patrick had never got him off like that before – maybe he had, back when they first met, but he’d never, in his life, experienced anything close to what Joe had made him feel.

He sighed, his balls twitching at the memory of how he felt when he came; Joe’s dick inside him and his scent – masculinity and booze and pure, unadulterated lust. He wondered if you could really fuck someone if you loved them – as in _really_ fuck them. Perhaps it wasn’t possible, perhaps after you fall in love that animalistic desire ebbs away. _Maybe_. Jon didn’t know. 

He got out of bed quietly and rifled through the clothes spread across Joe’s bedroom floor. After finding his jeans and his t-shirt, he slipped away, into the spare bedroom to retrieve another shirt – the one in his hand was covered in come.  

He went downstairs to smoke, wondering whether he should open up Joe’s laptop and take a peek at Facebook. 

Self-punishment at its finest, but he pulled the MacBook towards him and opened it up anyway, thinking briefly about how he’d have to go visit his apartment eventually… he still had clothes there, and records and weed… The majority of the rest of the stuff, he and Patrick had bought together. _He can keep those bad memories_ , he thought as the computer started up. 

He opened Safari and tapped the letters _Fa_ into the address bar. Facebook popped up automatically and Jon clicked the drop link. He was on Joe’s newsfeed and he glanced around the screen to try and familiarize himself with it. He didn’t know what to do now he was here. He scrolled down aimlessly, wondering if either Patrick or Pete had posted anything since yesterday. 

He typed Pete’s name cautiously into the search bar. 

The first picture on his homepage was one of him and Patrick, which had probably been taken before they arrived at the bar last night. He’d hashtagged it _lovers._ Someone called Andy had commented with the word _finally!_ and some woman, Jon assumed to be Pete’s mother had written, _You both look fantastic._

Patrick had been leading a double life. Jon closed the laptop. He’d seen enough. _Stay the fuck away from the Internet, Jon,_ he told himself. _No good can ever come from logging onto Facebook after a break-up._

He lit up his cigarette angrily, taking his first draw of the morning to calm his nerves. He hoped the sex with Joe last night hadn’t fucked up their friendship. He didn’t want to have to go back to sleeping on William’s couch, hearing him get screwed by Gabe. He didn’t want to go and live with his mom either. _Stop thinking,_ he said to himself; in the cold light of day, he couldn’t deal with his thoughts. 

_That sex…_ he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He’d swallowed Joe’s come and even that turned him on. Half of the time he spat even Patrick’s semen out into the sink after he was finished, but this… Jon’s dick threatened to get hard. He adjusted his pants and stood to look in the refrigerator for something to eat. Nothing. 

He heard movement from upstairs and a few minutes later Joe appeared in the threshold of the kitchen, his eyes bloodshot, his hair a mess around his face. 

“Mornin’.” Joe nodded at him as if he were greeting the mailman. 

“Hey,” Jon replied, equally impassive. 

“How’re you feeling?” he asked, pulling two mugs from the cupboard and putting three heaped spoonfuls of instant coffee into each of them. He turned on the kettle. 

“Good,” he admitted. He had felt great until he’d seen Pete Wentz’s declaration of love for his ex-boyfriend online. 

“Sore?” There it was, Joe bringing the subject of conversation around to sex again – sex they’d shared – sex that had reduced Jon to a quivering wreck, unable to even speak… He figured things would be just fine between him and Joe. 

“A little,” Jon reasoned. 

“Dude, if I’d have known you were so good at giving head, I’d have tried to seduce you a long time ago…” Joe raised his eyebrow suggestively. 

“Is that what passes for seduction nowadays, a few lines of coke in the bathroom and you threatening to beat up my ex?” 

“You’d have blown me anyway, even if it weren’t for the coke,” Joe shrugged, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head. “I could probably go for a morning quickie, right now,” he added, nudging Jon’s knee with his bare foot. Jon smiled, but didn’t make any attempt to answer him. When it was obvious that Joe wasn’t going to give up on him that easy, Jon scratched the back of his head. 

“Yeah… I’m…” 

His was interrupted by a knock at the door. Whoever was behind it had just saved his ass – quite literally. Joe craned his neck towards the front door and slapped Jon’s knee as he got up to answer it. 

“Saved by the bell, Walker.” 

Jon was distracted – he didn’t know whether he should feel guilty about fucking Joe. All their friends seemed to be expecting it anyway, so it wasn’t as if they were sharing some dirty secret – they weren’t Pete and Patrick. He’d enjoyed himself last night; he couldn’t get it out of his head – that feeling, that white light blazing through his muscles as if he were being bound together with piano wire and then – release; all that tension disappearing somewhere – not just out of the end of his dick, but escaping out of his pores. He thought about it and swallowed hard – about what Joe had said in bed after the blowjob. _I wish I could still taste myself on you –_ like some dirty porno actor. _Holy fuck_ , that’s what he wanted to do; bring Joe to orgasm in his mouth and then make out with the bastard, he – 

“I just want to talk to him, please. I know he’s staying here.” 

Patrick’s voice from the front door snapped him out of his fantasies and he even stopped breathing so he could hear better. 

“Well, he doesn’t want to talk to you and I’m not letting you in. Go home.” 

“Joe – _fucksake_. Call him for me, will you?” 

Jon wondered if Joe would call him or if he’d stand there in the doorway, making excuses for him until Patrick gave up and drove back home. He let his breath go in one slow, shuddery exhale, fumbling for his cigarette packet and drawing one out. 

“Jon!” his friend called from the door, not turning around. “He’s not interested. Now fuck off. How you think you can knock on my door this morning, after what you did last night, after what you’ve been doing for the past two fucking years, man, is just–” Joe stopped when he felt Jon approach him from behind. 

Patrick looked weary, as if he hadn’t had much sleep. He was wearing his glasses, but they didn’t hide the bags under his eyes, there was a slight shadow of stubble on his chin – as if he hadn’t shaved this morning and Jon didn’t know what to feel – hate, jealousy, anger. He knew what he _should_ feel, but… 

“If you two are gonna talk, you do it outside, because I’m not letting him in,” Joe pointed to Patrick and Patrick rolled his eyes halfway before looking up at Jon. 

“Please,” and he was begging. “Just – just give me some time to explain…” 

“Explain,” Joe snorted, folding his arms. 

Jon shot his friend a warning glance and Joe fell away from the door, walking back into the kitchen. 

“Let me get my shoes,” he told the man on the doorstep, and Patrick seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Jon padded into the living room to retrieve his flip-flops from under the coffee table. 

“Are you going to give him the chance to try and talk you into taking him back?” Joe appeared in the doorway. “Because that’s what he’s going to do, you know.” 

“Dude, just – _fuck._ Let me handle this, okay,” he snapped, losing his temper. Joe shook his head, obviously unamused about him going to talk to Patrick. 

“You better make this quick,” Jon warned his ex as he pulled Joe’s front door closed behind him. Patrick was stood up against the driver’s door of his car, swinging his keys around his finger agitatedly. He looked irritated and under slept. Jon sure knew that feeling. 

“ _He_ talks for you now, does he?” Patrick fumed, tapping his toe, jerking his eyes in the direction of Joe’s front door. 

“Don’t start. What did you want to talk about?” It was cold and Jon had forgotten his cigarettes in the house. 

“Come for a drive with me. Please. Or just get in the car, at least?” 

Jon knew he should have refused, folded his arms across his chest and demand that they just fight it out here, out in the open, which is where Patrick had conducted his business last night. _Let the neighbors watch_ , he thought, but he walked around the bonnet of the car and pulled the passenger door open instead.

Patrick began pulling out of the driveway, reaching over the back of Jon’s seat to see any oncoming traffic. They were a few blocks down the road before either of them said anything. 

“Look. I’m sorry, okay? I fucked up, I fucked up horribly and… and I’m _sorry_.” 

“You keep saying that word but it doesn’t mean anything.” Jon concentrated on the road through the windshield, the blue Chevy Impala driving in front of them with a Siberian Husky looking out the back window, wagging its tail. At least someone was happy. 

“I know you think that. Look – Pete and I…” Jon cringed at his name. “It’s not what you think.” 

“I think it’s exactly what I think. You two were fucking – for two years. Behind my back. Posting shit on Facebook to each other, because you knew I wouldn’t read it.” 

“No, we… I – look, when you went away to New York with Bill and Gabe, I was alone, okay, and I don’t know, Pete just came over one night; he knocked at the door and he’d brought a pizza and I’d already got started on a bottle of wine while I was doing my marking and so I let him in…” 

“Oh, Patrick, it all sounds very romantic,” Jon interposed sardonically. 

Patrick ignored him, but Jon could tell he was getting flustered. 

“And we ate pizza and that’s all it was – and… I was showing him to the door at the end of the night, I had school the next day and I was tired and I’d finished off that bottle of wine by myself and smoked a joint and… he kissed me. On the doorstep; and – and I knew it was wrong, I knew I shouldn’t be doing it, but I kissed him back and before I knew it, we’re on the couch and he’s kissing me and telling me he’s always liked me and I’m – _Jesus,”_ Patrick cursed, gripping the steering wheel tight between his hands. “I wasn’t thinking – and. Well, one thing led to another and-” 

“Did you fuck; in our bed?” 

Patrick’s silence suggested the answer was a yes. 

“I felt horrible the next day. I flipped out, I told him to leave-” 

“So you slept together too? It wasn’t just a fuck because you were lonely and drunk and high? He slept in _our_ bed, Patrick – with you. You let him _sleep_ there?” 

“I was so worried he’d tell you. I avoided him after that. I knew it was just some stupid, fucking mistake and I didn’t want it to ruin us, because I _loved_ you, Jon. Oh my god, I loved you so much. I didn’t want to lose you.” 

_Loved. Didn’t. Past tense._

“I avoided him, he kept calling me, telling me he wanted it to happen again and I _didn’t_. I wanted _you_. I told him I’d made a mistake – and he was so persistent – and then one day, he just stopped calling, stopped contacting me and we didn’t talk for,” Patrick paused to calculate it. “Four months – and then I bumped into him December last year-” 

“Yeah, wind it up, Patrick. I don’t want to know all the ins and outs of your blossoming romance with Pete Wentz. The fact is you cheated on me and regardless of the time frame, you still went to great efforts to fuck someone behind my back – and I know it’s not because of anything I did-” 

Patrick cut him off. They were on the freeway now and Jon wondered where they were driving. “Jon, you just wanted to party. That’s all you wanted to do on the weekend, hang out with William and Joe and Gabe and take drugs and wake up late for work on Monday and drink too much and fucking smoke – not just a little hit before bedtime, no, you wanted to spark up as soon as we got home from work and smoke all night and then the weekend would roll around again and we’d be back in the same bars, with the same people, taking the same drugs – spending money, getting high and just not _wanting_ anything else.” 

“No!” Jon snapped, turning in his seat to face Patrick and point an angry finger at him. “Don’t you turn this around on me, okay? You didn’t cheat because of what I did on the weekend – what _we_ did on the weekend. You cheated because you felt entitled to, because for some reason you felt better than me. You could have called it off, Patrick, you could have broken up with me after I got back from New York if you were that unhappy with me – hell, you could have realized your mistake after the first time, but no, you enjoyed it. You _enjoyed_ fucking him _behind my back_.” He glared out the passenger window and cursed. “Fuck! Stop making excuses. This is _your_ fault.” 

“I know,” Patrick stumbled. “I know it is. Please. I don’t want you to leave, Jon. I fucking love you.” 

“Don’t say that,” Jon warned, shaking his head. Joe was right; _are you going to give him the chance to try and talk you into taking him back,_ he’d said before Jon left. _Spot on, Joe, hit the nail on the head._ And now he was on the freeway with his ex-boyfriend with no escape. Maybe that had been Patrick’s plan. 

“I do, Jon.” 

“Please, Patrick,” Jon sighed, putting his head in his hand. “Don’t do this to me, this isn’t fair.” Jon heard Patrick sniff and looked over at him to see him wiping his eyes from under his glasses. 

“Jon. Look-” Patrick started and sniffed hard. “I fucked up so bad and I am willing to admit that and do anything it takes to get you to forgive me-” 

“Forgive you?” Jon interjected. “Everyone knows, man! Everyone knows you and Pete Wentz have been fucking for close to two years. Do you have any idea how that feels, to find out the man you love is screwing someone else? It feels like shit, Patrick! Forgive you? Jesusfuck, you’re lucky I’ve not knocked you out. You made me feel this small,” he ranted, holding his fingers an inch apart in front of him. “Don’t come at me like that. Saying you love me, you want me back. It’s too late! Take me back to Joe’s.”   

“Are you and him screwing?” Patrick asked after a pause. His voice was small, as if that had been the one question he’d been waiting to ask. 

“What’s it to you?” Jon was done – so _fucking_ done. He could have just admitted to it. Told Patrick how they’d fucked last night and it had been one of the best orgasms he’d had in recent memory; about how he’d sucked Joe’s big dick and swallowed his come and how Joe had offered him a morning quickie, how he wished he’d just taken him up on his offer, instead of opening the front door. Even having the worst sex right now would sure beat having this conversation with Patrick. 

“I guess it’s nothing to me. I just – please, let me make it up to you?” Patrick’s hand reached over the gearstick to brush Jon’s thigh. 

“Fuck off.” Patrick snatched his hand back. “Let me out of the car right here or drive me the fuck back to Joe’s house, right now. _You_ fucked up. You think you can apologise a few times and I’ll forget what you did and forgive you? You’re crazy. I don’t want to speak to you anymore; I don’t want to see you again. I’m getting a new job out of state and that’s the end of it. Get off at the next junction, Patrick, before I fucking flip the fuck out.” 

Patrick followed Jon’s instructions and they pulled up in front of Joe’s house ten minutes later without another word said between them. 

“You’re gonna leave Chicago?” Patrick croaked as Jon’s undid his seatbelt, a final, desperate attempt to get him to stay just a few seconds longer. 

It had been said in the heat of the moment, something to hurt Patrick, Joe had never had any intentions of leaving Chicago, but he was sticking by it. Fuck him. 

“I’m leaving Illinois, dude. As far away from you and your crazy new fucking boyfriend as possible.” Jon slammed the door and marched angrily up Joe’s steps. 

“Don’t, Jon. Don’t just walk away from me!” Patrick had his window down and Jon glared at him just as Joe opened the door. 

“ _You_ walked away – you walked away two years ago and you sat there, in my car last Wednesday morning and told me you didn’t want to be with me and you didn’t call me for two days and you’ve broken my fucking heart, okay, so don’t act surprised that I’m walking away from you. You’re a cheating cunt, Patrick. It’s over.” He turned to face his friend and sighed, pushing him back into the house and closing the door. 

“Well, that escalated-” but Joe didn’t finish his sentence, because Jon’s hands were on his jaw, pulling their lips together hurriedly. _Make me forget about him,_ he pleaded silently before he felt Joe’s hands grip his hips and pull their bodies flush. 


	12. Chapter 12

Jon had been living at Joe’s place for just over a month now and hadn’t seen or heard from Patrick since their altercation in Patrick’s car three weeks ago. 

When Jon and Joe were drunk or high – which was more often than not - they would fuck. Jon hadn’t looked for a job and Joe, since having agreed that Jon could stay so long as he put a portion of his unemployment check towards the rent, had been cautioned _twice_ about being late for work. 

On the weekend they’d hang out with William and Gabe at Travis’s place, or go out to a bar, but during the week, the majority of the time they stayed in and Jon couldn’t remember when he stopped taking drugs to forget about Patrick and started taking them so he could sleep with Joe with no remorse. 

The sex was great, but their friendship was becoming skewed as they trod the thin line between friends and lovers. Jon didn’t know what he wanted – he certainly didn’t want a relationship and Joe had made it obvious that he wasn’t down with any long-term commitment, but as the time wore on, the sex between the two became more daring, more desperate and after you’ve divulged certain fantasies to one person, it’s hard to keep things neutral in every day life. 

Sometimes the sex was so intimate between them that Jon would have a hard time believing that that’s all it was – sex. One day they were desperately fucking in a nightclub bathroom, Joe bruising Jon’s hips as he did him from behind over the sink and the next they were holed up in Joe’s bed together, Jon riding him, his lips pressed to Joe’s shoulder – all sweat and moans and synchronized orgasms. 

It was getting weird. It was as if they were each an outlet for each other’s dirty desires, but it was okay, because it was the drugs, right? They wouldn’t fuck sober. No. Never. Joe wouldn’t come in Jon’s mouth and then immediately attach their lips together so he could taste himself if he was sober… Neither would Jon let Joe fuck him so hard – in dirty club bathrooms, on the living room floor, on Bill’s couch after a particularly hard drinking session the other night. No, not if he were sober. He kept blaming the drugs, but the more time they spent together, the more they lost that time to sex. 

William and Gabe kept teasing them, but they’d both deny it – Joe more successfully than Jon, but it was obvious to their mutual friends that something was up – they’d both disappear together and then show up, twenty minutes, half an hour, an hour later, flushed and smiling. William would raise an eyebrow and Gabe would shake his head and the two of them would deny it, deny, deny, deny; until they were both just laughing at each other’s ridiculous protestations. 

Patrick was still with Pete, but had deleted his Facebook account, so Joe told him. Pete however, had recently listed himself as _In a Relationship,_ and kept posting pictures of the two of them together. Jon hadn’t ventured online for a long time, but Joe kept him updated every few days and Jon would try hard not to care. His anger at Patrick and his grief at losing him had eased over time. He was still jealous – jealous of Pete Wentz, which made him hate himself even more, but he now neglected to feel guilty about their break up. He held Patrick fully responsible and during his sober nights alone in bed, he wondered whether his ex regretted his decision to move from one relationship on to another so quickly. He hoped so, because that’d teach him. 

On one such sober evening, the two men had been sat on the couch, Joe flicking through the television channels until stopping on the baseball game. LA Dodgers verses the Phillies, two teams neither of them cared about but they sat and watched in silence for a long time, smoking and sighing – Jon ever so aware of Joe tapping his foot, his hand inching closer and closer towards his thigh as the innings passed by, and at the end of the seventh inning, Joe’s hand was back in his lap, adjusting his jeans. They were a safe distance apart, or at least Jon thought so, up until the top of the eighth and then Joe’s hand was suddenly scratching his beard, up into his abundance of thick brown hair and then – not quite as smoothly as Joe would probably like to think – he was stretching his arm, his hand finally – _finally_ – coming to a rest at the back of Jon’s neck and Jon thought; _you’ve been waiting since the top of the second inning to do that?_

“You’re tense,” Joe told him, his fingers pressing gently into his neck, around his collarbone. 

 _Yeah, no shit,_ Jon wanted to say. _This is easy when we’re drunk, when we’re on high coke or ecstasy, but we’re both sober, so…_

“Yeah…” He meant to give a reason, but he couldn’t think of a lie quickly enough. 

“D’you want – hey, c’mere.” Joe tried to pull him in, but Jon pulled away.

“What is this?” he asked and even as he said it, he knew he shouldn’t bother, because who cared what it was – _sex is what it was_ , he told himself as Joe’s hand fell away, back into his lap. 

“What’s _what_? I was just being nice.” 

“No, what’s _this_? You want to snuggle on the couch now, watching a baseball game that neither of us cares about?” 

“Oh my god,” Joe sighed, and Jon wished he had just kept his damned mouth closed, fell into Joe’s embrace and finished the game – then they could’ve gone upstairs and fucked and who cares if they’re both sober. “You’re gonna start on me like this?” 

“No, just…” but Jon didn’t really have an argument, so it fell flat. 

“Just what? I’ve got to keep my hands off you unless we’re both fucked up, is that it?” 

Joe paused for an answer, but Jon didn’t give it to him. 

“I’m gonna go to bed,” he said, standing up. 

“Yeah, alright. ‘Night,” Joe called, pissed off, as he exited the living room. 

Jon lay in bed for a long time and when he heard Joe climbing the stairs to his own bedroom, he kind of sort of wished there’d be a knock on his door and that Joe would ask for company but he didn’t, so Jon jerked off instead but it was four o’clock in the morning before he finally fell asleep. 

 

* * *

 

The next day, when Joe got home from work, Jon had been asleep on the couch. Joe’s key in the door had woken him and he struggled to sit up, embarrassed about being caught sleeping. 

“You tidied up,” Joe noted as he stood in the living room doorway. 

“Yeah.” Jon tried to blink himself awake, sitting up on the couch as Joe sat down next to him. He’d gotten little sleep last night and had woken early, hearing his friend leave for work at 7AM. He’d got up a little while later and started cleaning, because Joe’s house was beginning to get messy and it was starting to piss him off. 

“How was work?” he asked, lighting up a cigarette and offering one to Joe. 

Joe sighed, accepting a smoke. “Boring.” He took a drag. “How was your day? Thanks for cleaning the place.” 

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Jon had had a pretty productive day. As well as tidying the house, he’d sent off two dozen résumés to various schools in the both the Chicago area and out of state. He’d sat in front of Joe’s laptop, looking at a map of the United States, wondering which states he’d be happy to move to – he’d sent out résumés to schools in Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley in California… New York, Philadelphia… he’d even applied for a opening as the head of sciences at a school in Las Vegas after being told after he lost his job, that Las Vegas was desperate for teachers, they didn’t pay as much, but housing was cheap. It had taken him all day and he was really hoping that at least one of the twenty-something schools he’d applied to would get back to him. 

He wasn’t sure whether he truly wanted to leave Chicago. He loved his city, but he knew how the school system worked and he knew all it’d take was a phone call to his old school for everyone to know he’d been fired, in a roundabout way, for having a gay sex tape on the internet. 

During his day alone in Joe’s house, he’d thought about last night – about how he’d freaked out because Joe tried to stroke his neck and pull him in for… whatever. He was a tiny bit embarrassed about his over-reaction and had planned to explain himself as soon as his friend got home from work. Joe, however, beat him to it. 

“Look, listen, I’m sorry about last night.” 

“ _I’m_ sorry. I shouldn’t of… It was stupid of me.” 

“No,” Joe continued. “I keep forgetting it’s still only a month or so since you and Patrick broke up. I was just… it didn’t mean anything. I just wanted to make you feel good.” 

“I know,” Jon replied. “I over-reacted. I just… I don’t know,” he sighed, unable to convey the words he wanted to say. 

“Yeah. I know. That’s cool.” Joe picked up for him.  “It’s just sex, isn’t it? Fucking great sex, but _just_ sex.” 

Jon’s heart contracted. It _was_ fucking great sex, Joe would always make him come and his orgasms were these powerful, full-body orgasms that left him almost unable to even breathe. Maybe it was his big dick, or maybe it was because they were just two friends fucking, discovering each other and what turned each other on. Sex was always exciting at first, and Joe turned him on, there was no doubt about that. 

“I applied for a few jobs out of state today,” Jon told his friend. Joe looked over at him. 

“You’re thinking of leaving Chicago?” 

Jon shrugged, because _was he?_ Not if he could help it. His friends were here, his mom was here, he had a decent social life – maybe that was the point, maybe he needed a change. 

“I need to start teaching again, man. It’s either moving out of Chicago or accepting some shitty coffee-house job and that’s just super depressing.” 

“Wow, Jon Walker, moving onto greener pastures,” Joe said, stoically. “No, that’s cool, dude. Where’ve you applied for jobs?” 

“New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco… Las Vegas?” 

“Vegas? Dude, that’s the middle of the fucking desert, your pasty Midwestern ass will fry.” 

“Well, it’s early days,” Jon sighed and he stretched against the trunk of Joe’s body, leaning back into him. “I’ve applied for a job that I’m under qualified for anyway, I’d be surprised if I hear back from Vegas, but I probably need to get the fuck out of this city anyway. New York would be a cool place to live, Gabe and Travis are from there, it’s got a good gay scene, San Fran too _and_ Philadelphia.” 

“Planning on meeting a nice boy and settling down? You’d let me come and visit though, right? Especially Vegas, I’ve not been there in years.” 

“Yeah, dude, of course.” 

He’d miss Joe if he left. He’d been a great support since he and Patrick had broken up, not just in the form of great orgasms and rough sex, but he’d been there as a friend too. Joe had taken an almost instantaneous dislike to Patrick since the truth had come out about his relationship with Pete and that helped. William had been sympathetic, talking about how nice Patrick was, how surprised he was at the news he’d been fucking someone else behind Jon’s back, about what a great couple they were, how he’d never ever imagined them breaking up… Jon didn’t need that. Joe had been of the opinion that Patrick would soon get his comeuppance, that Jon was better off without him and fuck him, that lying fuck. 

Jon was tired – a full morning of cleaning and an afternoon of compiling cover letters and résumés had knocked him for six. He felt relaxed enough to slip down into Joe’s lap and close his eyes. Joe pulled his fingers idly though Jon’s hair and it was comfortable. 

“I’d miss you if you left. It’s been fun having you around; you’re like perfect househusband material; cleaning up and giving me amazing blowjobs. Can you cook too?” 

Jon laughed, and cracked one eye open to look at Joe. “I can learn, what with all this spare time I have on my hands. You never know, I may get another job here. That’d save a lot of fucking hassle.” 

Joe hummed a response and leant over him to stub his cigarette out in the ashtray on the coffee table. “Did you ever go and get tested in the end? At the clinic?” 

“Yeah,” Jon sighed – he’d shuffled down to the sexual health clinic two weeks after he and Patrick had broken up and sat there feeling ashamed as the pretty nurse asked him intrusive questions about his sex life – about whether he engaged in unprotected anal sex and how many sexual partners he’d had in the last two years. She asked him when he lost his virginity and Jon had stumbled out a lie about it being when he was 18, with a man he trusted. The truth was he was fifteen with his mom’s best friend’s husband – a rough and unromantic affair if ever there was one. “All clear,” Jon told him. 

It had been a huge relief when his results came back negative of any infections or diseases. Either Pete had continually used a rubber while fucking Patrick, or he’d just been very lucky.  

“That’s good,” Joe reasoned, switching on the TV and flicking to the baseball game. “You know, I’m clean too and I’m always super careful with guys I fuck, but if I went and got a test, proved I’m all good – would you let me fuck you bareback?” 

The question threw Jon a little off guard. Not two minutes ago they’d been talking about Jon’s job search – Joe had claimed he’d _miss_ him if he moved out of Chicago and now, he was asking to fuck without protection? That was some intimate shit. He’d only indulged in bareback sex with Patrick and now Joe, the kinky motherfucker, wanted to follow suit. 

“Uh. I guess.” Jon was too taken-aback to even make an excuse. 

It wasn’t that Jon had a problem with it; he didn’t – he’d always enjoyed it – as if fucking without a condom made the whole experience more intense, more enjoyable, way more dirty, but Joe was his _friend_ – a fuck buddy at most and Jon didn’t want their admittedly incredible sex to morph into anything too awkward. As if one day they’d wake up together and Jon would find himself feeling jealous of the other boys he knew Joe looked at and would want more from him – a _relationship_. 

“Yeah, that’s a huge turn on of mine, I don’t get to do it as much as I’d like because I never keep a guy around long enough to just drop into the conversation a casual _lemme fuck you without a rubber and come in you ass so I can suck it outta there,_ y’know?” Joe’s voice was creepily neutral and he seriously had a kink for the taste of his own semen, Jon thought. _The weirdo._ The visual turned Jon on regardless.

“So, you reached the one-month anniversary with me, is it? Time to ask the big question? Bareback sex.” 

“Dude, I get bored of most guys after, like, a few dates. I get restless, man, I gotta move on. You’re a friend though, it’s different – plus you’re really good at head, which, trust me, is a really rare occurrence for me. So, I mean – I’ve not been with anyone since we’ve first fucked and I’m assuming you haven’t either and I trust you’re free of any gross diseases…. I am too. You’d be down?” 

“Well, yeah, but it kind of takes some of the fun out of it, doesn’t it? You’re treating it like a business contract.” 

“Well, it’s not something that everyone does. It fucking turns me on though, but a few times I’ve tried to suggest it guy’s have been like _dude, you need a rubber on that thing, you’re too big to do it bareback._ ” 

“ _Oh woe is me, I’m Joe Trohman, my dick’s too big_!” Jon teased, turning over and burying his face into Joe’s lap. 

“Fuck off,” Joe laughed, his hand curling around the back of Jon’s head and looking down at him. “It turns me on that you can take it; in your throat _and_ in your ass. It’s like, all this time we’ve been friends, getting fucked up together and getting high and we never hooked up, and then you were someone else’s boyfriend and I never really thought about you like that and now, you’re single and we’re living together and I wake up with a stiffy thinking about you and when I’m at work, all I wanna do is get home and just try as best as I can to try and fuck you, but you’re ice cold, unless you’re wrecked, dude…” 

Jon hid his embarrassment in Joe’s lap. 

“But like, it’s _weird_. I mean, you’re not even my type, but the sex you and I’ve had in the last month has been fucking awesome.” 

“Yeah. It’s been pretty good.” 

They sat there for a while together, Jon in Joe’s lap, Joe’s fingers pulling idly at the curls of hair that fell at the back of his neck. Jon was so damn relaxed and so damn comfortable that he must’ve drifted off for a few minutes, until a knock at the door jerked him awake. 

“Oh, dude, people always call around at the worst moments,” Joe grumbled, glancing back over his shoulder out of the window behind the couch, his tattooed arm stretched out to separate the blinds. Jon looked up at him – Joe wasn’t your typically good-looking guy, but he worked it, his sense of style and his long hair made him stand out, not to mention his sky-high charisma. He was sexy, over handsome, Jon thought, watching as Joe’s eyebrows knotted together in confusion. 

“Who is it?” he asked, from Joe’s lap, worried that it could be Patrick. His heart raced. 

“Travis. That’s weird, I didn’t even know he knew where I lived. Man, I was almost falling asleep then,” he admitted, standing up and dislodging Jon’s head. Jon struggled to sit up straight; he was feeling groggy – he could have gone for a long, slow fuck right about now and he’d been out for the count all night. 

“Jon here?” he heard Travis ask from the front door and Jon started to panic, because he was pretty certain he didn’t owe him any money and couldn’t think of any other reason that Travis McCoy would track him down at Joe’s house and ask to speak. “S’up? You heard from your ex and his adorable new boyfriend lately?” 

Jon shook his head and sighed. His break-up with Patrick was still fresh in his mind and it still hurt like hell. The only time he didn’t think about him was when Joe fucked him. 

“So, I was out with Bill last night, getting pizza and don’t tell William I told you this, because he wanted to keep it a secret, but when we sat down, Patrick was there, sat in the corner with some guy who definitely wasn’t Pete and _dude_!” Travis exclaimed. “They looked closer than _just friends,_ y’know what I’m saying?” 

Joe huffed a tired _oh, for fucks sake_ from his position in the doorway and shook his head and Jon tried to ignore the fact that he cared so much – about Patrick, snuggled together in a pizza joint with yet another random guy. 

“What… what guy? What did he look like? Did Patrick say anything to you?” 

Travis shook his head. “Dude, he didn’t even see us, this guy was, I don’t know, mid-to-late-twenties, dark-ish hair, stubble. I couldn’t get a good look at his face, but he was wearing a Wrigley Park hoodie.” 

“Dude, you didn’t tell me you were going for secret rendezvous with Patrick,” Joe looked at him and said. “Because that guy you just described, Travis, sounds exactly like Jon.”  

“I thought it was you at first, man,” Travis shrugged at him. “I wanted to go over there and be like _hey, what’s up?_ y’know, but Bill was all like, wanting to get outta there, so we left, but they were like…” Travis paused and raised his eyebrows. “Into each other.” 

“Isn’t he still with Pete?” Jon asked, looking away from Travis and up towards Joe. “I mean, who fucking cares, I guess, huh? So, Patrick’s seeing some other guy behind Pete’s back? That’s not a surprise.” 

“Once a cheat, always a cheat, right?” Joe reminded him and Jon nodded.

“Bill didn’t want to tell you, but I thought you should know. That guy’s something else, dude. You can do better,” Travis told him, the serious look on his face breaking into a grin. “Right, Joe?” he added, nudging the man beside him, his eyes still on Jon. 

Jon felt a blush rising in his cheeks and detached his gaze from the two men in front of him, embarrassed that everyone seemed to know about his little affair with Joe – or whatever they were calling it. Sex. 

“Oh, he’s already doing better,” Joe answered. Travis laughed. 

“Alright, you boys have fun. I’ve gotta go. See ya, Jon,” he called as he left the living room and he and Joe exchanged goodbyes on the doorstep. 

Patrick was hooking up with some other guy – just over a month after dumping Jon for Pete Wentz. He’d begged him to take him back, had told Jon he loved him, that he wanted to be forgiven just three weeks ago in his car. Fuck knows how long Patrick had been seeing this new guy; maybe while they were still together, maybe it was a recent thing; maybe Pete was aware of it, maybe he wasn’t – it could also be perfectly innocent, he tried to convince himself, but either way, Patrick hadn’t contacted him since Jon had called him a cheating cunt that Sunday three weeks back. He sighed. _Thanks Travis,_ he thought. _Another fucking blow I have to come to terms with._

“Does that bother you?” Joe asked when he returned to the living room. 

“Even if it did, it wouldn’t make any difference. What can I do? Patrick and I are through.” He finished with a shrug. 

There was a small silence between the two men and Joe stretched, pushing his crotch out to catch Jon’s eye. 

“I’m uh – I’m gonna have a lay down, if – if you wanna join me.” Jon looked up from the bulge in his friend’s jeans and smiled. Joe wore a small half-grin on his mouth and then he disappeared and Jon heard him climb the stairs. He lasted six minutes before following him up. 


	13. Chapter 13

Joe’s door was open a crack and Jon pushed it open, smiling when his friend lifted his head off the pillow and sighed a quiet _hey._

“Not asleep yet?” Jon asked, standing in the doorway, his fingers wrapped gently around the doorknob. Joe was naked save for his boxers, the bedspread bunched at the foot of the bed. 

“Waiting for you.” 

Jon entered the room and closed the door behind him, walking over to the empty side of the bed and climbing on the mattress next to Joe. Jon was the one to close the distance between their bodies and after a few seconds, their lips were pressed together, Joe’s mouth open allowing entrance for Jon’s tongue and they made out like that on the bed – both sober – until they were hard. 

Jon had led the kiss, eventually laying over his friend’s body and between his legs, his fingers in his hair, palming his stubble-rough jaw, stroking around his neck. Joe’s hands kept sliding from the back of Jon’s head, down his spine and around his hips, their kisses slow and sloppy and _fucking gentle_ , Jon thought as he pressed his hard-on into Joe’s thigh. The previous kisses they’d shared had never been gentle – not like this, not concentrated and tender – they’d been rough, desperate, a binding contract which led to sex and as Joe reversed their roles and pressed his forehead against Jon’s, Jon didn’t feel panicked or awkward or worried that their friendship was about to suffer – he felt like all this made sense; sober afternoon kisses with Joe. His head could try and refute it as much as possible, as could his heart, but his body had given up that fight long ago. 

Their lips connected again, Joe on top this time, he kept pulling away to look into Jon’s eyes, kiss his nose, trail his lips over his cheeks and down his jaw to his collarbone. Jon caught his breath as he felt the suck of Joe’s mouth on his neck, pulling at the tender skin there, flicking his tongue across it. He closed his eyes, feeling his heart rate spike as Joe sat back and pulled at the bottom of his t-shirt, yanking it up over his head. 

Joe’s fingers trailed a circle around Jon’s nipple, pulling at in gently, his mouth pressed to his ear. 

“God, you make me so hard,” Joe whispered, his lips kissing their way back to Jon’s, his tongue pressing into his mouth. This kiss was less tender, Joe pulled at Jon’s bottom lip with his teeth, eliciting a shallow moan from the man beneath him. “I’ve not made out like this since I was a teenager,” he smiled, rolling over onto his back and pulling Jon on top of him. 

“I want to be on top this time,” Jon told him, pressing their still constricted erections against each other. He sucked at his friend’s neck, inhaling the scent of cigarettes and cologne on his hair. 

“You wanna fuck me?” Joe asked, with his eyes closed. Jon paused, but didn’t pull back, he pressed another wet kiss behind Joe’s ear. He hadn’t meant that – he’d simply meant he wanted to sit on top, ride Joe’s dick, fuck himself into oblivion – but the new idea Joe had inserted into his head made Jon’s balls twitch. 

“Well, what I actually meant was that I want to sit on your big dick, but… ” Jon breathed into Joe’s ear, “I can switch. If that’s what you want…” 

Joe groaned low and dirty, his hands sliding between the waistband of Jon’s pants, squeezing his ass. “I would like that; but not now. I want you sat on my cock, riding me slow…” 

Jon reached between their bodies, popping the first button of his jeans and pulling at the zipper, he slid his hand into his pants, palming his own cock as Joe slid them down over his ass. They rolled over again, Jon’s back against the mattress, Joe leaning over him, his eyes hazy with lust. Jon’s jeans were off, Joe’s boxers tented painfully over the head of his dick. Jon reached over, pushing his hand up the leg of Joe’s underwear, his hand ghosting over the long, smooth shaft of the dick inside. 

He squeezed, jerking him off slowly as Joe lay there, in the nape of his neck, his hair tickling Jon’s nose. Joe’s eyes were closed, his finger tracing idle patterns around Jon’s stomach, trailing down around the base of his dick, around his balls and then across his perineum as Jon spread his legs open slightly. 

Jon caught his breath – Joe’s finger was pressing against his asshole, pushing past his tight ring of muscle and all the way down to the knuckle. Jon felt his finger flex – and right away Joe had found his prostate, was gently stroking it with the tip of his finger, causing Jon’s body to contort on the bed, because that felt so fucking good and Patrick had always had trouble locating it or even reaching it, but Joe seemed to know his body so well already. 

“Long fingers,” Joe smiled. “They come in handy…” 

“Yeah,” Jon managed to breathe. “Add another. Please…” 

Joe pushed Jon’s shoulder slightly, shifting him over so that they were both on their sides, spooning. He pushed on Jon’s back and Jon complied, bending his body to accommodate Joe’s fingers – two was slightly more of a stretch, but it felt good. Joe was inside him from a new angle, the top of his hand pressed up against his ass as his fingers stretched him open, finding his spot again quickly and bringing Jon so close to orgasm before pulling out and leaving him empty. 

Jon needed that dick. He pulled himself up from the mattress and positioned himself over the head of Joe’s cock, pushing himself down an inch before pulling off. 

“Dude, so are we not using a rubber, is that what you’re trying to tell me?” Joe asked as Jon writhed above him, frustrated as fuck, his dick leaking. “I’m clean, if…” and Jon pushed down again, causing Joe to moan at the tightness surrounding the head of his dick. Jon pulled off again. “God, what a fucking pricktease,” he smiled, grabbing a hold of Jon’s wrist and pulling him down for another kiss. “Lube’s in the drawer,” Joe told him, when he pulled away. 

Jon leant over to the nightstand and pulled the top drawer open, rooting around in amongst condoms and old batteries and scrunched up tissues before locating the half full bottle of lubricant – or half empty, depending on which way you wanted to look at it. 

Jon didn’t think he’d last long after he lowered himself down onto Joe’s unsheathed dick – the feeling was just as intense as the first time, a long, slow burn; horribly uncomfortable until Joe was fully inside him and after that, it felt incredible. Joe lay still underneath him until Jon got accustomed to the feeling; he didn’t think he’d last long, but they’d been at it for close to an hour and neither of them had come yet. 

It was slow; painfully slow and steady and soft – their previous fucks had all been so desperate, so rough and hard and quick, but this was something else entirely. Joe’s hands lay against the small of Jon’s back when he leant forward against his chest, sliding down his butt-cheeks, one long finger pressing suggestively against his already fully fucked and stretched asshole.  

Jon groaned, his muscles feeling like liquid, buzzing with arousal. They’d changed positions several times since they first started, but Jon liked being on top and Joe seemed happy enough to lie back on the mattress and let Jon fuck himself. Joe had said he’d wanted it slow, and that was what he was getting – he was aching for release, but they slowed when either of them got too close, made out, Jon’s fingers twisting into Joe’s hair… and then they’d start up again, Jon moving his hips back and forth on top of his friend, slow and strong. Jon had never felt like this before; each time he would bring himself so close to orgasm and then Joe would still his hips, pucker his lips until he fell against them and calmed down – Joe could read him really fucking well. Jon didn’t know how he did it. 

After another ten minutes of stopping and starting between hot, wet kisses, Joe groaned out that he needed release. 

“You’re so tight and hot and-” Joe’s words turned into a moan, as Jon squeezed his asshole around the base of his dick, and Jon felt it, his orgasm peeking inside him like a white, hot heat inside the back of his balls. He leant forward, propping himself up over Joe on his hands, the angle he knew would knock Joe’s dick up against his prostate and he fucked himself – hard this time and fast and desperate; a quick thirty second fuck before Joe’s hips were pushing up off the mattress, deeper inside him and Jon came after that, his come spilling out across Joe’s stomach. 

“Come inside me,” he moaned and his voice sounded alien, as if it didn’t belong to him as he rode back and forth to get his friend off. 

“Oh. Shit…” Joe cursed, pulling Jon in by his neck, his hips bucking up off the mattress now. Jon could feel each and every second burn by, his orgasm already spent; his come sticky between their bodies and Joe was fucking him now, his dick suddenly feeling so big and so hard and then Jon felt it, Joe’s hot come spilling inside of him; more and more and more until Joe’s muscles turned slack underneath him and they were left, laying together, breathing hard, trying to catch their breaths. 

In the quiet moments of post-coital haze, Jon thought to himself. _You just let him fuck you bareback – and you’re totally sober; not even stoned. This is getting risky…_ He tried to force himself to care, but Joe’s hand was stroking over his hair, his cock still pulsating inside him. Jon could feel his friend’s heart racing inside his chest and he inhaled the smell of Joe’s hair – still smoke, tinged now with sweat and sex. 

“Wow. That was… that was a session and a half, huh?” Joe spoke, his fingers dancing down Jon’s spine. Jon shifted his body up, pulling off Joe’s dick with a groan and flopped down on the mattress beside him to blink up at the ceiling. 

“Yeah, fuck. I can’t remember the last time I fucked like that…” 

Joe laughed quietly. Jon could feel his come dripping out of his ass and shifted on the mattress. 

“Me neither. Bareback too,” Joe cooed. “Fucking sexy.” His fingers dipped between Jon’s legs, between his ass cheeks and around his entrance. Jon was sensitive, he flinched at Joe’s touch, made all the worse with how gentle he was, his fingers sliding over his taint, around his asshole and then up against Jon’s lips. Usually, Jon would have refused to indulge Joe’s kink, but his body was feeling sex-heavy and so he parted his lips and sucked Joe’s fingers into his mouth, tasting his friend’s come mixed with the sweet taste of the lube they’d used. Joe’ lips pressed against his, his tongue sliding languidly into his mouth, his fingers returning to their spot between Jon’s legs and pressing between his ass cheeks again. 

His fingers came up again as they made out and slid between their mouths. Jon licked around Joe’s digits, tasting him; it was almost exhilarating. Joe pulled back, his fingers pushing into Jon’s mouth, over his tongue, right down to his knuckles, pulling them out right before they made him gag. 

“All this time,” Joe whispered, patting Jon’s hair back off his clammy forehead. “I had no idea you were such a good fuck. Much better sober, right?” he asked and Jon smiled, his eyes closing, his body totally spent – he felt his joints melt into the bed. 

“ _Much_ better sober,” he agreed. He couldn’t argue with that. Tonight had been incredible – over an hour of slow, hot sex. It had been exactly what he needed and now he was spent. The sun hadn’t even set yet, but Jon let himself fall asleep, his legs entwined with Joe’s.

 

* * *

 

“Mornin’. Fancy a quickie?” 

Jon was awoken by Joe’s chin hooked over his shoulder, his already hard dick pressing into his back. He blinked back sleep, trying to clear his eyes and his head – _fuck, was he sore_! He winced as he shifted his aching muscles on the mattress and pushed back against his friend. 

“What’s the time?” Jon asked through a yawn, closing his eyes against the still early morning light that crept across Joe’s bedroom. 

“Almost 6AM. I’ve got about half an hour before I have to start getting ready for work,” his friend told him, his hand already sliding over his ribs, down around his hips and wrapping around Jon’s semi-hard dick. 

“6AM, _fuck…_ Did we both sleep through?” he asked, enjoying the morning jerk-off session that he was currently being treated too. The sun hadn’t even gone down when he fell asleep last night – he must have slept for at least twelve hours solid; Jon couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that, if ever. 

“You did. I dozed off for an hour and got up around seven last night, fucked around online a bit, threw a pizza in the oven… You were dead to the world, dude. I let you sleep.” Joe kissed his shoulder, his hand leaving his dick and rubbing his ass. His fingers ghosted over the crack, parting his cheeks and running one finger against his asshole. Jon sucked up a breath of air through his nose. _God, he was tired. How was that even possible?_  

“You’re still wet from last night,” Joe noted, his finger pressing inside and flexing. Jon closed his eyes. He was sleepy, and he was aching, but Joe was kissing his back, his lips pressing against his shoulder blades. 

They didn’t say anything else. Joe shifted up behind him, pushing him lower down onto the bed so that they were in perfect position and they fucked silently, Joe’s hands stroking Jon’s back, up his neck and into his hair. It was slow and lazy; the kind of sex you have when you’ve known someone a long time, which, Jon guessed, they had. Still though, it felt good, so he tried not to think about it too much. 

“Goddamn, I could do this all morning,” Joe told him, shifting their positions so that Jon was laying on his back, his right leg raised as Joe fucked him from a side angle. An hour long session last night, morning sex this morning, Joe nervously reaching out to pull him in for a cuddle on the couch the other night… Maybe there was more to it than just buddies fucking, Jon thought. Joe was cool, but Jon couldn’t ever imagine settling down with him – perhaps he was reading too deep into it, but they were both sober last night and couldn’t laugh it off and blame the booze and the pills anymore. 

Joe fucked into him, the angle of his dick pressing into his prostate, pulling Jon’s wandering mind back to the warm feeling building in the base of his balls. He jerked himself off, coming over his stomach as Joe pressed their lips together. 

Joe followed shortly after. Jon felt him shoot his load inside him and blinked back the urge to fall immediately asleep. His friend pulled out and smacked his ass. 

“I’m gonna jump in the shower,” he said, giving Jon’s shoulder a quick kiss. “I could get used to waking up to that,” he added, climbing off the bed and wiping his dick on the bedsheet. Jon made a mental note to throw the bedding in the laundry sometime today.

“Yeah. Right?” Jon replied sleepily. _Me too. Fuck, me too,_ he thought – and that was the problem.


	14. Chapter 14

Jon had fallen asleep in the short space of time Joe took to shower. He was woken up to the sound of him returning to the bedroom, noisily opening and closing the closet door and sending a text, that godforsaken _click, click, click_ of his iPhone. He was trying to ignore it and pretend he was still asleep.   

“Hey, can you give me a ride to work?” Jon cracked his eyes open to the sight of Joe wriggling into his pants and thrusting his crotch forward to zip them up, his hair wet around his bare shoulders. 

“What time do you need to leave by?” he asked. He didn’t want to have to get out of bed, the mattress was warm and cozy and he felt so well fucked, that getting up to drive Joe to work was the last thing on his mind. 

“Seven,” his friend told him, pulling a plaid shirt off the floor, sniffing it and then pulling it on, rubbing his hair dry with a towel. 

It was 6.43AM and Jon sighed. “Dude, I’ve gotta shower… why d’you need me to give you a ride?” 

“Just to help me out,” Joe replied incredulously. “C’mon, man, a shower takes, like, two minutes. I’ll buy you a coffee.” 

“Alright, okay. I’m getting up. Fuck, dude, I’m sore.” His stomach muscles were aching, as were his thighs – he’d got a good work out last night and he was feeling the effects this morning. 

Two minutes before 7AM and they were both climbing into Jon’s car, backing out of the driveway. The shower had woken Jon up only slightly, but after his first cigarette of the morning he was starting to feel a little more human. He was looking forward to the coffee that Joe had promised him. 

“D’you think you’ll hear back from any of those schools you applied to?” 

Jon scoffed. “Fuck, would _you_ employ me?” 

“Definitely not, you’re a liability,” Joe smiled, looking out the window at the grey early morning sky. “But it’d be cool if you got another job out here. I bet moving to Vegas would suck so bad, it gets way too fucking hot out there. I would literally die if I had to spend a summer in the desert.”

“Literally?” Jon asked. “I don’t know, it’d probably be cool to live out there for a few years. There’s a ton of shit to do out there and I was looking at rent and houses and it’s real cheap to live. I could afford a house, man – a big, three bedroomed house with a pool for like half of what Patrick and I were paying for our place.” 

“And be really fucking lonely, knocking around in a big house like that in the Las Vegas suburbs on your own, slap bang in the middle of the Mojave,” Joe noted. Jon rolled his eyes and inhaled on his cigarette. Joe was probably right. Las Vegas would probably suck, but he didn’t want to rule out relocating there just yet. He was going to go wherever the work was. He was getting desperate. 

Joe bought him a coffee at a fashionable little coffee house about a block from where he worked. The coffee was over-priced, but strong and Joe flirted with the pretty female barista until she gave him a free muffin, which they shared as they sat outside and smoked. It was still cold in Chicago – late May and the mornings were still struggling to reach the fifties and this morning was particularly gloomy. 

Jon was halfway through his coffee when he noticed Joe’s gaze focus behind his shoulder and his body language change. He’d gone from slumping in the metal chair, his legs spread wide, to sitting up and taking a sudden interest in his paper cup of coffee, trying to look inconspicuous. 

“This boy is fucking mental. I’ve been trying to avoid him for a month,” Joe informed him and Jon craned his head around to see a young boy who he recognized as the teenager from Jon’s couch a few weeks ago – Conor or Conrad or what. 

“Hey! Joe!” Conor was breathless when he reached their table, his dirty blond hair covered with the hood of his coat. He had a lip ring and he eyed Jon cautiously, before looking back at the object of his affection with a huge, dopey grin on his face. 

“Cooper, what’s up?” Joe nodded. “You remember Jon, right?” he asked, waving his finger between the two of them. 

“Yeah… Hey.” Cooper, not Conor, glanced at him briefly. “I’ve not seen you in forever!” he gushed at Joe, shifting his bag from one shoulder to the other. “Where’ve you been?” 

“Here and there,” Joe replied. “Jon and I we, uh…” he started and Jon’s attention was snapped away from the young boy in front of him and to his friend’s blue eyes, wondering where the hell he was taking this conversation. “We’ve been… hanging out.” Joe smiled his way, trying to surpass a laugh and Jon glanced back at Cooper warily. 

“Oh. That’s cool. Uh… That’s _cool_ ,” the boy stammered. There was no doubting the meaning of _hanging out_ in the intonation of Joe’s voice. Hanging out meant fucking. Cooper was visibly put out. “I tried calling you – and texting. I wondered if you changed your number.” 

“No. Number’s still the same, bro…” And Joe just left it like that, trying not to smile around his cigarette. _Heartless_. 

“Oh. Well…” Cooper was in love with Joe – that was obvious from every word that fell clumsily from his mouth and his self-conscious body language as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Okay.” He laughed, nervously. “There’s a band playing tonight at The Union club, which is all ages. You might like them, they’re pretty tight. They’re local – my friend’s the bassist. You should come along.” 

Joe ran his hand through his hair and hummed. “Maybe. I don’t know. Didn’t we have plans already for tonight?” he asked and Jon shrugged; he didn’t want anything to do with Joe’s head games. The poor lovesick teenager seemed to be draining of confidence by the second. 

“Well… You’ve still got my number, right? I can text you the details or whatever later if you want to pop by, it’d be so cool if you came along, Joe. It’s crazy that we just bumped into each other here, huh?” 

“I know, anyone would think you’re stalking me,” Joe said, without a hint of irony to his voice and Jon had to laugh at that, but his friend looked unamused, stubbing his cigarette out on the table and flicking it to the floor. 

“I’m just on my way to school,” Cooper defended himself. “It’s just a coincidence, really.” 

“Well, I’ve gotta get to work, so…” Joe made no attempt to move from his chair and Cooper faltered, stuck to his spot on the sidewalk. Jon could see the cogs of his mind spinning, trying to think of something else to say to prolong their time together. 

“You should come to the gig tonight. It’d be cool to hang out again.” 

“We’ll see.” 

 _Fuck, Joe was cool considering the situation_ , Jon thought. _Screw dating. It seemed like one hell of a pain in the ass._  

“Well. I’ll see you. Nice meeting you again, Jon,” Cooper flashed him a smile, and he was a handsome boy, but he looked younger than he had a few weeks ago on the couch. In the morning light, the boy looked barely sixteen. He paused for another few seconds before gathering himself up enough to walk away. Jon watched him leave, taking the final puff on his cigarette. 

“Dude, that boy is totally in love with you.”

“I know. Who can blame him?” he grinned. “He’s a little freak though. He calls me sometimes at three in the morning asking if he can come over. I am done with kids like him – we didn’t even fuck, just jerked each other off and it was like he expected me to ask him to move in with me or meet his parents or some shit.” Jon shook his head, looking back over his shoulder at Cooper’s disappearing form. “First crush; god fucking help him.” 

“Poor boy,” Jon added. “You’re cold-blooded, man.” 

The wind picked up, blowing Joe’s hair around his face. “Oh yeah, I forgot what an expert on dating you are,” he answered, rolling his eyes and smiling as he finished off the last of his coffee. “I’ve gotta get going, I’m gonna be late,” Joe looked at his cellphone for the time and stood up, brushing his jeans free of muffin crumbs. “I get off at three. There’s this bar down the block that has a killer happy hour ‘til five, if you want to meet there.” 

“Sure. Sounds good.” Jon stood up, fitting the lid over his paper cup of coffee and taking a sip through the hole. 

“Alright. Roll on 3PM,” Joe sighed. He stepped into Jon’s space, his head leaning forward and taking Jon by surprise as he pecked his lips. “Can’t wait.” Joe pulled off and turned away as if the kiss was nothing. Jon watched him for a few seconds longer than he should have before turning the opposite way on the street and walking back towards his car. 

He shook his head as he got into the car and flipped on the heating.

 _Goddamn_ , _Joe Trohman. What the hell do you think you’re playing at?_

* * *

 

That day, Jon got to the bar early. It was a quarter past two and he probably couldn’t expect Joe for another hour, but he felt he needed a head start. 

He’d had a reply from just one school when he’d checked his emails this morning – the vacancy in Las Vegas for head of sciences – and that was so fucking typical. Joe had already put ideas into his head about how much living in Nevada would suck in the summertime and he’d really been hoping for a nice school in Chicago to take pity on his pathetic ass and employ him without too many questions about why he’d been fired from his previous job. 

The school in Las Vegas had been keen to organize an interview and was considering the fact that Jon lived out in Chicago. They would be interested in talking with him via Skype, they said, let us know, they said. Please. 

Jon sighed, wondering if he could wait a few more days to reply, in case a better option presented itself, but he’d replied to the email as professionally as possible, implying he was delighted to get a reply and a change of scenery was much needed. 

He kept checking his emails all day, waiting for more replies from schools desperate to have him; but they didn’t come and Jon had been scheduled for an interview on Skype tomorrow morning. 

He was already three beers deep when Joe turned up, looking great with his hair and his plaid and his leather jacket. God _damn_. 

“What’s up, starting without me?” Joe asked, taking a stool at the bar and motioning to the bartender that they’d like another two Coor’s Lite. 

Jon hummed his reply. “I got an interview with that school in Las Vegas” he said. Joe would try and talk him out of it. 

“Oh. Really? Wow, that was quick. That’s cool, dude. You don’t have to go out there, do you?” he asked, tipping the barman and taking a slug of his beer. 

“No. They’re doing it via Skype, tomorrow morning. They were dead keen.” 

“Huh.” There was a small silence that fell over the two men. “Congrats, dude. That’s cool. Vegas, huh?” Joe lifted his bottle and clinked it against Jon’s and then quickly changed the subject. “Dude, that boy Cooper has been blowing up my fucking cellphone all day.” 

“How old is that kid, anyway? He looks _real_ young.” Jon wondered if that’s who he had to compete with – some barely legal, stalker kid from the bad area of town. 

“Eighteen,” Joe answered, scrolling through his phone on top of the bar, not bothering to look over at Jon. “At least, I think so.” 

“Dude, that is so risky. You could lose your job over him, they’d never let you work with kids again if the authorities found out about your little jerk off sessions.” 

“Yeah, alright,” Joe snapped. “Keep your voice down.” He looked cautiously up at the bartender, who was similarly engrossed in his own smartphone, paying little attention to their conversation. “We should totally go see that band he was talking about though,” he grinned, eventually putting his cellphone back in his pocket and focusing on Jon. “I spoke to Travis today, he’s got a shitload of Speed he wants to get rid of for cheap, if you’re interested.” 

“How cheap?” Jon asked, his interest peeking already. 

“I don’t know; we’d have to go over there. We should do some tonight, go to that gig…” 

“I’ve got an interview for a new job tomorrow morning, I can’t be up doing Speed all night,” Jon told him, but he knew that was a lie as soon as the words left his mouth, because as soon as the Happy Hour finished at five, the two men drove to Travis’s house, spent thirty bucks each on Speed and decided that, yes, it would be a good idea to go see that band Cooper had invited them along to, and yes, they definitely both wanted to be high while they did it.  


	15. Chapter 15

“Oh, that’s funny, see, because when I was in school I had no idea what I wanted to be either and then, I was hardly academic because I was way more interested in going out and getting fucked up and smoking and drinking and being rebellious, but hey! Cooper, you’ll figure it out. This one time, when I was about fifteen, I went to a house party of a friend of a friend and I got there real late, I remember and that was the first night I met Joe and we were like, totally into the same bands and shit and yeah – oh, did he tell you, I’m a teacher?” Jon babbled, sitting way too close to Cooper, still trying to figure out his true age because if this kid was eighteen as Joe so claimed, he certainly didn’t look it. The drugs were in full flow, but Jon thought he was hiding it well. 

“Yeah, you mentioned it.” Cooper looked uncomfortable, clutching a plastic cup of 7-Up in his hand. “D’you know where Joe’s at?” he asked, looking around. 

“Oh, he’s around here somewhere. D’you like him? I think you do. I remember my first crush, it was on this way older guy who was actually married to my mom’s best friend and he had twin daughters who were my age and he was this really good-looking older guy, you know? I don’t know. I was about fourteen, he was in his late forties or whatever, but he was really attractive, you know what I’m saying? And oh my god, I crushed on him so hard for about a year and he was always just so cool, you know and I never had my dad around when I was a kid and so I don’t know-” 

Jon was cut off by a hard slap on his back and turned to see Joe stood there, slipping into the booth behind him. 

“You two look like you’re getting along great!” Joe beamed – and he looked high, grinding his jaw, his pupils wide. Jon wasn’t far enough gone not to notice how high his friend looked. He wondered if he looked the same. He fucking hoped not. That one negative little thought buried itself deep into his current psyche. He rubbed his face. 

“Yeah, I should really go see if the band needs any help setting up,” Cooper told them, standing up as far as he could between the seat of the booth and the table. “Excuse me.” 

Jon tucked his legs in and leant back. Joe was pressed up against him, his hand on his knee. Cooper glared at it as he struggled past them, but he didn’t say anything. When he was out of the booth, he ambled slowly away and stood by the stage, sucking on his straw. 

“I don’t know if it’s these drugs or what, but you are looking _fine_ tonight, Mr. Walker,” Joe told him, his hand squeezing his knee as he looked around the club which was just beginning to fill up – the clientele tonight consisted of teenagers; most of them around Cooper’s age – seventeen, maybe eighteen at a push, but Jon didn’t feel out of place. He didn’t care. He was on drugs. 

“Thanks. It’s sucks we can’t drink here,” he noted. These fucking all-ages venues never served booze, not that he frequented them very often, but still… His jaw was starting to ache and Joe looked restless. He was scanning the room, his legs jerking, his fingers drumming against Jon’s thigh. 

“We should leave,” he said, suddenly. “We should get out of here right now.” 

“I thought you wanted to watch the band,” Jon said. He was comfortable enough in the corner of the club, sat with Joe, out of view from the majority of prying eyes. Who cared if they were spotted? The room was filled with teenagers with stupid hairstyles, a couple of people their own age and a handful of older patrons – perhaps in their forties, stood around, talking, probably parents. 

“No, we should leave. It’s – _God_ , this is boring, don’t you think? We should go to a bar, or a club, they’ll be opening up soon, huh? We could grab food, a pizza or some shit – whatever you fancy. Let’s go,” Joe pulled at his arm, eyes locking on his and Jon pulled back, eyeing up the room behind Joe. “Come on!” he pleaded. “This place sucks. You’re right, we can’t even get a fucking drink here!”

“What’s up, dude? Why are you so-” And Jon’s question fell short, his eyes stopping just behind Joe’s right shoulder, his guts dropping, his stomach contracting, his heart pumping out of time. 

“Come on. We can leave. He probably hasn’t even seen us yet,” Joe told him, but Jon had seen _him_ and all of a sudden he felt like his entire night was ruined. Patrick – laughing and smiling, wearing that fucking hat Jon had bought him last Christmas. The Christmas before he lost his job, the Christmas when he’d been gallantly taking Pete’s dick up his ass and well as Jon’s, that lying little son of a bitch. 

“Oh god,” Jon sighed, putting his head in his hand on top of the table. _What the hell is he doing here,_ he asked himself, his cheeks starting to burn, his anger – the anger he’d always had problems with as a child – rising up from the pit of his stomach and into his chest. 

And there he was too, Pete Fucking Wentz. He was tipping a water bottle back to his lips, dressed in a sleeveless denim jacket over a hoodie and his hand was on Patrick’s shoulder and Patrick looked over at him and smiled and Jon remembered when that smile was reserved for him and then it happened – a kiss, a tender peck from Patrick on Pete’s jaw and Jon’s palms itched as he watched. 

“I swear to god, that motherfucker needs some sense kicked into him,” Jon mumbled, trying to push out of the booth past Joe. He didn’t know which motherfucker to which he was referring. He didn’t know who made him more angry – Patrick or Pete, but Joe was holding his shoulders and he looked high as a kite, but he was still attempting to stop Jon from going over there and swinging his fist into either of their faces. 

“You can _not_ lose your shit, Jon,” Joe told him firmly, with the seriousness of a man high on Speed. Jon’s shoulder jerked under the pressure of Joe’s hands and he shook his head. 

“I won’t. Let’s go over and say hi.” 

He pushed past the blockade of Joe’s body and out of the booth, suddenly feeling the effects of the Speed a lot more than he had while he’d been sat down. Walking across the expansive floor of the club, he felt borderline psychotic. 

“Jon!” he heard Joe call after him – and bless Joe, he’d tried to get him out of this place before they’d spotted each other. What a fucking sweetheart, he thought, as he paced towards Patrick and that cunt of a new boyfriend of his… 

“Hey! Patrick! Pete, what a surprise!” he smiled. And Patrick’s adoring eyes snapped quickly away from Pete’s face and looked him up and down, his expression almost panicked. 

“Jon… what – what are you doing here?” he asked, pulling quickly away from the hand that Pete still had on his shoulder, stepping away from him and against the black-painted wall of the club, pasted with old posters advertising gigs that had already happened. 

“I’m here with Joe!” he enthused, jerking his thumb behind his right shoulder. “What are _you_ doing here?” 

Patrick looked almost shell-shocked, he opened his mouth, but nothing came out. 

“I organize these gig nights for the kids. Set up bands to play here every week,” Pete answered for him, looking proud. The prick. 

“Oh, how sweet!” The drugs were taking over. Jon suddenly seemed to realize he was stood in front of Patrick and the man who he’d ruined their relationship for and he faltered until he felt a hand wrap around the back of his neck. He settled into it, watching Patrick’s eyes focus briefly on the man behind him and then back at him and then at the floor. 

“Are you two _on_ something?” Pete asked, looking at them, his eyes filled with uncertainty, but a smile still apparent on his face all the same. 

“Yeah,” Jon nodded, praying Joe would take it from here, say something cocky or spit out some sexual innuendo, because he was struggling. “Speed,” was the next word to fall out of his mouth and Pete looked disgusted. 

“It’s a Wednesday evening,” Patrick pointed out.

“It’s a Wednesday evening!” he mocked, imitating his ex’s voice with a whine. The four men fell into silence. _Goddamn, Jon Walker, you should have just listened to Joe, left the club when he’d suggested. You could be sat with a drink in your hand right now._  

“Do you want some water?” Pete asked. 

“Not from you I don’t,” Jon spat immediately and he watched Pete’s expression falter as he looked to Patrick for support. 

“Patrick,” Jon started, as if a sudden wave of inspiring conversation had washed over him. “I bumped into Travis the other day and-”  
  
“ _Bumped into_?” Patrick scoffed, cutting him off. “You mean, you went to his place. To buy Speed. With Joe?” He flashed Joe a deprecating look. 

“No, I mean, he hit me up - as a friend, you must remember what they are? He said he saw you at a pizza joint with some other guy the other day…” Jon continued. Patrick’s eyes ignited, Pete gave his partner an unsure look, that damn smile wavering only slightly on his face. 

“He’s probably making that up. And anyway – what are you doing, keeping tabs on me?” 

“No,” he rubbed his nose. “Just wondering what you’re doing, out with some other guy, when Pete here treats you so well and keeps you so well fucked, oh my god,” he groaned, pushing his hands into his face and up through his hair. “How many men do you need to keep you satisfied?” 

“We should go.” He felt Joe pull at his shoulder. Jon shook him off. 

“Jon, don’t make a scene,” Patrick told him, under his breath, eyes scanning the room at the people casting them side-eye glances. 

“What about a few weeks ago? The morning after you two turned up at Bill’s party? You begged me to take you back, Patrick. You cried. You told me you loved me, that you’d made a mistake. So, what are you going to do, string this sucker along until you think you’ve found someone better?” he quipped, watching Pete’s smile eventually fade completely. That’s what he wanted – to destroy Patrick’s faux happiness, to bring down those walls, to pull Pete Wentz’s heart out of his chest and stomp on it; only what he’d had done to him. He wanted payback. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patrick uttered, his voice barely audible amongst the loud chatter of teenagers and the tuning of cheap guitars. 

“Do you have a job yet, Jon?” Pete asked, in the silence that followed. 

_You stay the fuck out of this!_ Jon seethed at the same time that Patrick protested, _Pete, please! Don’t!_

“Time to go,” Joe piped up, both hands locking on Jon’s shoulders and steering him between Pete and Patrick’s bodies and towards the front entrance which was being blocked by fashionable youths. Jon could swear he recognized one or two of them from his classes at his old school. 

“Hey, Joe!” Pete called after them. “We used to be tight once, what’s up?” There was a heavy dose of mockery pushed into every word he uttered. Jon heard Patrick tell him to _just fucking leave it, will you?_ but Joe had already turned around, leaving Jon in the middle of the room as he marched back towards him. 

Jon turned, watching as Joe’s palms connected hard with Pete’s chest, pushing him backwards and into a punk-looking couple drinking Coke from a plastic cup. 

Pete stumbled back but caught his footing, apologizing briefly to the people he’d been pushed into, before squaring up to Joe. The contrast was slightly ridiculous. Out of the corner of his eye, Jon saw Cooper approaching, his eyes wide, his empty cup in his hand as he tried to make sense of the situation that was arising. 

“Come on then, _hit me._ In front of all these fucking witnesses, Pete. Come on!” 

Pete leant his head forward, but kept his fists down by his side. “I don’t know why you’re so pissed, Joe. Least you’re benefitting from their break-up; as Jon’s rebound fuck!” he bit. “Patrick doesn’t want you, Jon. He chose me! _Me_! We were fucking for over a year and a half behind your back and you had no clue, because you were too wrapped up in your drugs to care, so fuck _you_ , man!” 

“Hey, Pete! Seems like your boyfriend’s already cheating on you, it didn’t take long, huh?” Joe said those words, not Jon. 

Patrick stepped in front of Pete, holding him back by his shoulders and trying to calm him down. Pete was swearing, trying to push past Patrick to get at Joe. There was a small crowd gathering by now and a lot of excited eyes glancing their way. 

“You expect me to trust the word of your drug dealer?” he snapped, eventually breaking free from Patrick’s arms and charging at Joe with his palms, shoving him back by his chest. Joe didn’t stumble as much as Pete had. “It’s not true, is it, Patrick?” Pete turned and asked, and just before Patrick shook his head, Joe reached out, returning the shove with an angry push to Pete’s shoulder. Jon turned around in frustration, pushing his hand through his hair. 

Jon felt a burly security guard push past him and watched as he made a grab for Joe’s shoulders and pulled him out of Pete’s face. Pete shouted after them, Joe shrugged the security guard off with numerous claims that he was cool, he was cool, let me go, I’m cool. He manhandled Joe out of the club and Jon followed, tailed by Cooper and his empty cup of 7-Up. 

“We don’t want any trouble tonight, you two – three –” the bouncer corrected, glancing briefly at Cooper, “have got to go.” And Joe shook the fight out of his limbs and wiped his mouth and Jon glared at Cooper really, _really_ wishing he’d not followed them out. 

“God! I knew we should have left before any of that kicked off. I spotted them and I tried to get you out of there and what the fuck – you really wanted to sit there and watch some shitty teenagers play shitty punk covers?” Joe asked, irritated. Cooper piped up with a pathetic _hey!_ His friends’ band, Jon remembered. Poor Cooper and his stupid infatuation with Joe. “Fuck!” he kicked at the ground. “What a fucking prick!” 

“Who, Patrick or Pete?” Jon asked, trying to laugh. 

“Both of them.” Joe seemed more wound up than Jon did. “Right,” he breathed, his joints jerking – either from the effects of the drugs or the adrenaline from the almost-fight in the club. “Fuck this place. Fuck Pete and Patrick and no offence, Cooper, fuck your friends’ band, let’s get out of here.” Joe started up the street, turning around after a few steps. “Come on!” 

Jon looked over at Cooper, still clutching his empty cup, the straw twisting around in the wind and eventually followed his friend’s lead. Cooper didn’t notice Jon looking at him, he was too preoccupied watching Joe leave. When Jon reached his side, Joe was already smoking and passed his cigarette over as he exhaled. 

“Joe!” Cooper called after them, his voice clear on the breeze. “I’ll call you!” 

Jon glanced at him and tried to hide a smirk. “Your admirer still thinks you cool.” Joe rolled his eyes. “Thanks,” he said, nudging his elbow into Joe’s arm. “That was cool; what you did for me in there.” 

“Fuck, it’s nothing,” Joe shrugged. 

“Did I act like I was on drugs?” he asked. 

“A little bit,” his friend smiled, taking the cigarette back and putting it between his lips.

“I’m feeling it though. D’you want to go to a club?” he asked. Joe threw his arm around Jon’s neck and pulled him into his shoulder. Jon nodded against his leather jacket and breathed in the scent of him; Joe, mixed with nicotine and weed. He didn’t mind. He didn’t want to pull away because it felt good. Patrick and Pete couldn’t bring him down from his high tonight; he had Joe. That’s all he wanted.

 

* * *

 

“Oh my god, your dick feels so big.” Jon was never one to say things like this during sex. When he fucked, he fucked - and during the handful of times in the past couple of years that he’d been on the receiving end with Patrick, he’d never felt the need to praise the size of his cock. He and Patrick worked because they were in love. Jon and Joe worked for some other reason – maybe the fact that they weren’t in love and far from it. 

“I wish you could see it from this angle,” Joe told him, his fingers digging into his hips, looking down between their bodies. He was breathless; a fine sheen on sweat covered his forehead. “Fucking obscene,” he moaned, pushing into him. 

That’s what made Jon lose his mind – that feeling; Joe pulling almost all the way out and then forcing himself back in. He’d never been as hungry for any dick as he was for Joe's; which was why he was letting himself get fucked in the grimy disabled bathroom of the sleazy club they’d come to for William’s birthday a few weeks ago. 

The poster outside the club listed tonight as _the only gay alternative metal club night in town! $2 PBR! $3 house wine! $4 cocktails!_  

The club was reasonably busy for a Wednesday evening, but not so busy that they hadn’t managed to slip into the disabled bathroom together without anyone noticing. It hadn’t taken them long to silently agree that they wanted to fuck. Joe’s hand had palmed Jon’s dick through his jeans before they even started kissing and when he made a haphazard tug on the buttons of his pants and Jon didn’t pull away, that was the green light. Within a minute of locking the door behind them, Jon’s pants were around his ankles and he was turning around, bracing himself on the dirty porcelain sink and blinking at his reflection in the scratched up mirror in front of him. 

“Fuck, oh my god, I wanna fuck you. You’re not gonna be able to walk outta here without everyone in the club knowing you’ve just taken my dick,” Joe had told him, unzipping his own jeans and running his hands over Jon’s ass cheeks. “Christ. You want it?” Joe’s middle finger pressed into his ass, immediately pressing in far enough that he could locate his prostate. Jon’s body jerked violently, the Speed they’d taken earlier on this evening making his nerve endings burn with urgency 

Bent over a sink in a dirty dive club bathroom, he didn’t think he’d wanted anything more than he wanted Joe’s dick. 

The music thumped through the walls of the bathroom as Joe fucked him and Jon just couldn’t fucking concentrate on anything other than his own searing pleasure. How could anything so depraved and dirty feel so _good_? 

He didn’t even need to jerk himself off. He was certain that he was going to come really hard pretty soon if Joe kept up the pace from behind. His knuckles whitened on the edge of the sink and he felt that pleasure peak. It was all he could do to keep himself upright, to keep his knees locked so he wouldn’t crumple to the ground, because that’s certainly what he felt like doing. 

The handle of the door rattled – a reminder that there were people on the other side of it, waiting to piss or take drugs in the sticky bathroom where they were currently fucking, Jon lost in his own blissful world, drugged and getting fucked. 

“You’re close, huh? Joe asked. “I can feel it.” 

His dick twitched, his balls tightened and he was so hard, his dick was leaking. He pushed back greedily into Joe’s thrusts, meeting him halfway. Joe moaned behind him, low and guttural, one hand slipping up Jon’s back and hooking over his shoulder, pulling them closer together. 

“Harder. Fuck me harder,” Jon managed to breath, closing his eyes and dropping his head forward. Joe fucked him and Jon thought he was going to pass out. Never, in his life… 

“Look at me,” he heard Joe order from behind and it took a great effort to keep his neck raised, his eyes fixing on Joe’s in the mirror and Joe looked a fucking state – hair wet with sweat across his forehead, his pupils huge and wild, his eyes unblinking. Joe’s hand grabbed a hold of Jon’s dick and he didn’t need much work, a couple of strokes and three more hard, long thrusts of Joe’s dick and Jon came, unceremoniously on the underside of the basin. He felt Joe follow before he’d finished his own orgasm and then he dropped his head forward, pushing back into Joe’s leaking dick greedily, milking the last few drops of his own arousal, which spilt over the head of his cock and down Joe’s fingers. 

“Fuck, fuck… _fuck,”_ Joe moaned, almost in a daze. Jon struggled to find his breath, his body weak as Joe pulled out of him. “God, that was hot.” 

Jon felt empty, like he was going to unravel. He stood leant over the sink for a few more moments, his eyes closed as he heard Joe step back, pull some toilet paper off the roll and wipe away the come that was leaking out of his ass. Jon shuddered. In all his life he’d never been with someone who reduced him to this much of a mess. He let out a shuddery exhale and tried to shake the sense back into his head. 

“Good?” Joe asked. When Jon turned around he was already back in his pants, smiling lopsidedly at him. 

“You have no idea how good that felt.” 

“I think I do. You came hard,” his friend pointed out, looking down at Jon’s still exposed and softening dick. Jon struggled a laugh, still high from the drugs and trying to come down from his orgasm. He bent to pull his jeans up and sighed at Joe. 

“That was fun,” he said, unable to hide his grin. Joe stepped into him, his hand slipping around the back of Jon’s neck, pulling him into his body. Jon still felt slack and lazy from coming so hard. He let Joe wind him into a kiss, slow, precise. 

“You _look_ like you’ve just been fucked,” Joe laughed, sounding proud. 

Jon smiled, stepping up against Joe again and reattaching their lips. Joe’s hands pulled Jon’s face in and they made out. Jon didn’t want to get hard again, so he pulled away first. 

“Do I make you happy?” 

“Yeah,” Jon replied. “You do.”

Even through his drug haze, Jon could tell that Joe’s question was heavy with hidden meaning


	16. Chapter 16

“Dude, it’s twenty-five hours drive time. Ten hours a day, five hours each – we’ll be in Vegas in two and a half days,” Jon had told Joe with naïve optimism as he planned out the route on the laptop and Joe smoked behind him, his fingers stroking idly over the exposed skin of Jon’s back where his t-shirt rose up.

  
Jon had been offered a job and he needed to get the hell out of Chicago as soon as possible, before he changed his mind. Joe was against it, he could tell, but had offered him nothing but support – albeit half-assed support – since Jon announced he was accepting the job offer and moving to Nevada. 

Everyone thought he was crazy; even his mother had asked if this was his roundabout way to get over Patrick – moving to the other side of the country, but no, not really, Jon had told her. He’d been unemployed for close to six months, single for almost two and trying to deny he was developing feelings for Joe for about three weeks.  
  
He needed to leave; Joe said he was stupid, what was there to do in Nevada apart from gamble and smoke indoors, he asked. _Don’t go_ , he said. _I’d miss you_. Jon had made up his mind though; he’d already accepted the job two weeks ago, after a Skype interview with the Principal. They were desperate, said the Principal; a middle-aged woman with glasses and big breasts. Head of sciences had retired last term, they needed someone young to inject some fun into the subject and Jon had sat there and smiled and schmoozed and wondered why the hell he’d ever become a teacher in the first place. The job in Las Vegas had previously tried to offer him $45,000 a year – he’d asked for sixty. The Principal had settled on $52,000. It was a big pay cut from his job at the private school, but Vegas was cheap he kept telling himself. Even Joe had been surprised when he showed him how inexpensive houses were out there.    
  
 _We can make it in two and a half days_ , he’d thought when looking at the route from Chicago to Las Vegas online. _Easy; so long as we power through the driving._ Joe had offered to take a week off work and drive down with him, the few belongings Jon had, stuffed into the trunk and back seats of his car.  
  
Their original plan was to leave Chicago westbound and drive straight through Iowa and Nebraska, down through Denver in Colorado and then Utah into Nevada. _It’ll take us two and a half days, maybe three tops,_ Jon kept trying to convince Joe, who’d planned to spend a couple of days in Las Vegas before flying back home.

At the very last moment, Jon had decided he wanted to drive down to Springfield to see his dad. They’d not seen each other in a good few years and him leaving the state was a good enough reason to pay him a visit. 

The visit was surprisingly easy. Jon’s dad was in a good mood, his stepmother was out and Joe, in typical fashion, was his usual charming self.  
  
“So, this is kind of serious, huh? Me, meeting your dad?” Joe nudged him when his father went to the kitchen to fetch three more beers.  
  
Jon laughed. It was weirdly easy between the two of them. The fucking had turned into something akin to fondness and they’d never discussed it, but Jon had started sleeping in Joe’s bed on a regular basis about a month ago, even when they didn’t fuck. When he cautiously accepted the job in Las Vegas, he realized the only thing that’d keep him in Chicago was Joe and the realization worried him. Regardless, he decided to rush ahead anyway. They’d had a dispute and Jon could tell Joe didn’t agree with his rash decision to relocate to Sin City.  _Yeah, Las Vegas is cool for a couple days, man, but I couldn't live in that heat - that fake little town in the middle of the desert?_ Joe sighed one evening.  _I don't think Donny and Marie moved to Vegas because they were at the pinnacle of their careers. Vegas is where rockstars go to die, dude,_ he lamented another.  _Lucky I'm not a rockstar then,_ Jon had retorted.   
  
“I don’t even think my dad knows about Patrick and I…” he pointed out, amused. It was true; Jon’s dad hadn’t even mentioned Patrick since they’d been sat in his living room. He’d accepted Joe’s presence with a handshake and a question about what he did for a living.  
  
“So, Las Vegas, huh? Are you moving out there too, Joe?” his dad asked, awkwardly; probably his way of asking if they were together.  
  
“No. Just helping Jon move his stuff down there, sharing the driving."  
  
“That’s a long old drive,” Jon’s dad noted and then fell silent.  
  
Joe asked if he could use the bathroom, Jon’s father told him it was straight up the stairs to the left.  
  
“So. Your mom told me about you and Patrick.” Jon could tell this conversation would be awkward. It wasn’t that his dad was a homophobe; he’d have just preferred it if Jon were straight. He’d never been particularly welcoming towards Patrick, but Jon couldn’t tell if that was because they were gay or because Jon was his first son from a marriage he’d rather forget. Maybe a bit of both.  
  
“Yeah,” Jon sighed. Patrick hadn’t been informed about the move. Jon hoped it would piss him off, but they hadn’t had any contact in weeks, not since they ran into each other at that gig. He was busy playing happy families with Pete, apparently, working hard, mixing with Pete’s friends, his family… If he didn’t have Joe to occupy his mind at night, that would still be getting him down.  
  
“Joe’s your new fella?”  
  
“No. He’s just a friend, helping me out. I moved in with him when Patrick and I broke up. He’s been good to have around, y’know?”  
  
Jon’s dad hummed and took a slug from his beer bottle. “It doesn’t matter to me, you know that? You – being… what you are.”  
  
“So much so that you can’t even say it? I’m gay, it’s not a dirty word.”  
  
“I know,” his father defended himself. “When did you realize, when did you make the choice, you know? I always wondered.”  
  
“I don’t know. When did you make the choice to be straight? It’s nothing _you_ did – or didn’t do and it’s nothing that mom did, it’s just the way it is. I’ve always known and I just accepted it.”  
  
“Him too?” his father asked, motioning with a jerk of his balding head up the stairs. “Gay?”  
  
“Yeah. Him too,” he smiled.  
  
“Not boyfriend material though?” And his dad returned his grin.  
  
“Maybe if I wasn’t leaving Chicago.”  
  
His dad laughed as they heard Joe’s heavy footsteps returning to the living room. It was weird. That was the most honest conversation the two men had ever exchanged and Jon had just admitted his feelings for his friend for the first time – to his father, of all people.

 

* * *

 

Monday evening. Denver, Colorado. 

Jon’s eyes alternated between the label of his Heineken bottle and the bar, where Joe was meant to be getting another round in, but was instead being hit on by some young, skinny blond haired boy, who looked not too dissimilar to that Cooper kid back in Chicago. 

It’s not that Jon cared. He didn’t, he told himself. He didn’t care. Not enough to make a scene, anyway, to go over there, squeeze Joe’s shoulder and interrupt his conversation with the blond. Joe laughed at something the blond twink said and Jon looked back at the Heineken bottle, peeling the silver and green foil away from the glass. 

He didn’t care. He didn’t have the right to care – not now he was moving to a city some six states away, but he did – and that was bad news. 

They were at a gay bar, but it was quiet; obviously a Monday evening wasn’t a particularly busy night for Denver’s revelers and of course, the only semi-attractive, still youthful patron of this particular bar had latched onto Joe. 

Jon looked back up, rolling the foil label between his fingers and pushing it through the neck of the empty bottle. Joe had his head dipped forward; the boy had both hands in his hair, ruffling up his already messy locks. _That fucking hair,_ Jon cursed. Perhaps he grew it out like that just so people asked him about it. Like people with dreadlocks. Like Pete and his shitty tattoos - a conversation starter. _Maybe_ … but either way it wasn’t his place to say anything. Whatever they had going on – sex; perfect, incredible, hot, heavy sex – wasn’t anything official by a long shot. It couldn’t be – Jon was moving to Vegas and Joe was staying in Chicago. 

Jon looked back at the bar, Joe stood there letting their beers get warm, still conversing with the skinny kid at the bar. Jon sighed. _Whatever._ He could find someone to flirt with tonight if he wanted to. He scanned the bar – the talent in Denver, Colorado was disappointing this Monday night. He reached into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes and stood to walk outside. 

It was a reasonably mild evening and Denver was actually pretty fucking beautiful; a little metropolis surrounded by mountains. The fresh air and high altitude made him dizzy. He lit up his cigarette and leant against the wall. 

Last night in Kansas City, Joe had said something that had got him thinking. They’d fucked slowly, for what felt like hours. Joe had rimmed him, which was a first for them and the noises he made while doing it, made it seem like engaging in the act was one of the biggest turn-ons for him. Jon came three times, the first twice with Joe’s dick in his ass, the last time in almost perfect unison with his partner, Joe’s cock down his throat, two fingers inside his friend’s ass, his other hand jerking himself off. 

Joe had come so hard, you’d have thought he’d not had sex in weeks and Jon had swallowed his load, like the dutiful fuck-buddy he was before flopping down next to him, exhausted. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had made him come _three_ times before releasing their own orgasm. Joe had stamina – and he also had skills. Jon had been thinking about the words he had muttered last night right before he fell asleep, all day long. 

 _If you were staying in Chicago, this’d mean so much more._

Jon had smiled into Joe’s shoulder, his dick softening between his legs, his arm flung over Joe’s stomach. He’d asked him what he meant by that, but Joe was already dumb with fatigue, his eyes closed softly, his breathing deep. Another few minutes and he was snoring. Jon had been thinking about it all day.

 _If you were staying in Chicago, this’d mean so much more._

What would? _Sex_? Their friendship? Whatever fucked up relationship they’d somehow found themselves in since Jon’s less than amicable split with Patrick? Those eleven words had been spinning through Jon’s head all day; and the road from Kansas City to Denver had been a long one. 

“Hey! You okay?” Jon was snapped out of his daze by Joe’s voice and looked up to see him holding out his bottle of Heineken, which Jon accepted, _thank you very much, you took your time._

“Making new friends?” he couldn’t help himself from biting. Joe laughed and leant on the wall next to Jon. 

“I’m out of smokes, can I borrow one, pretty please?” he asked, bottom lip pouting. Jon himself was almost done with his own cigarette, having let most of it burn away while he analyzed Joe’s pre-sleep sentiment from last night. He pulled his packet out of his pocket, flicked his cigarette to the sidewalk and offered the pack to Joe, who pulled two out, putting one in his mouth and one in Jon’s. 

Jon heard the click of a lighter and leant his head in towards Joe, sticking the end of his cigarette into the flame and taking a sharp inhale. He certainly smoked more now he wasn’t with Patrick. 

“That kid in there, are you interested in him?” Jon asked. He noticed Joe shoot him a quick side-eye glance, but he stared straight-ahead, over at a record store, which was just closing its doors for the night. 

“Why, you jealous?” Joe asked, the cocksure, arrogant bastard. 

“No. If you are, you should go for it.” Jon told him, bringing his cigarette to his lips. 

“Is that what you want me to do?” 

Jon’s shoulder pulled up in a shrug automatically. “If you want to,” he added, because he really didn’t care whatever the fuck Joe wanted to do. He _didn’t_ care. 

“Are you pissed that he was flirting with me?” 

“No!” Jon scoffed, shaking his head. “God, no!” He pushed himself up off the wall and leant forward, kicking at his old, discarded cigarette end with the toe of his shoe, so that Joe couldn’t see his face. He remembered Patrick doing a similar thing the night of William’s birthday, when he’d turned up on Pete’s arm. The night Joe and he fucked for the first time. “You were flirting back. If you want to – go for it.” He didn’t know why he kept saying that – most likely as a test, some stupid fucking head game. _If you were staying in Chicago, this’d mean so much more._  

“I’m not interested in him. I was only being polite. The kid bought us our drinks, I couldn’t really nod a thanks and hurry back to the table.” 

Jon bit the inside of his cheek and nodded at the ground. He wasn’t doing a very good job at hiding his discomfort at the situation, so he fell back onto the wall, his hand rising to his mouth again to take another puff. 

“Why would I want him when I’ve only got a few more days with you?” Joe asked him, his fingers brushing against Jon’s, pulling their palms together and squeezing his knuckles. Jon turned his head to look at his friend’s blue eyes. They looked sincere enough. 

“He just looked like your type – young, blond-” 

“Twenty-seven, dark, brown eyes, stubble. Stood right here,” Joe cut him off, squeezing his hand again, leaning his mouth into Jon’s shoulder and puckering his lips against his jacket. “I’ll make it up to you. Let me show you how crazy you make me. D’you wanna go back to the hotel?” 

Jon sighed. “Yeah.” His insides twisted. _Fucking Joe Trohman._ If only he was staying in Chicago, that could have meant something.

 

* * *

 

“I just… oh, _god…"_

There it was; Joe’s finger up against his prostate again and Jon couldn’t argue with anything Joe said when he was making him so hard. 

“You were saying?” Jon heard his friend ask, but what _was_ he saying? He didn’t remember, it didn’t matter. _Fuck,_ Joe made him so crazy. “You just fall apart when I do this, don’t you? You’re fucking cock-hungry.” 

“That’s not true,” Jon breathed, closing his eyes as Joe added another finger, twisting his wrist and then fucking his fingers into him. Jon gasped. Lightening bolts. 

“Yes, it is.”

And yes, Jon guessed it was true. He couldn’t think straight when Joe fucked him. When they were together, he wanted to spend as much time as possible riding that dick. Tonight, after returning back to the hotel from the bar, Jon had suggested he top. He wanted to fuck and it wasn’t the first time he’d had his suggestion knocked back. Joe had been very coy about the whole thing – always claiming he wanted to, but never actually going through with it. _Not tonight,_ he’d said once before. _Let’s wait,_ he promised another time. 

It wasn’t that Jon minded. Not really. After all, Joe fucked him so perfectly, his dick always pushing into his prostate on every stroke and it turned him on so much to be on the receiving end of that big cock, that it didn’t take him long to forget about his desire to fuck Joe’s ass. Not when he was on his back, taking his dick like a pro. 

Whether it was rough and fast or slow and tender, it was the same feeling, just measured on a different time scale – that burning fire right at the base of his dick was almost unbearable. With Joe his orgasms started in the soles of his feet, inside the tips of his toes and _that_ was certainly something he’d never experienced before, as if with each in stroke, he was being wound tighter and tighter and tighter, like a guitar string and then all of a sudden, sometimes without warning, he broke – coming undone in Joe’s arms or on top of his dick until he couldn’t breath or see or think about anything other than present moment – the past and the future became intangible and it was just him and Joe in those blinding white seconds of orgasm. 

“Why don’t you suck me off and I’ll consider it,” Joe told him, pulling his fingers from his asshole and flopping over onto his back. Jon shifted himself up between Joe’s legs and took a hold of his dick in his fist. 

“You’re meant to be making it up to me, asshole,” Jon reminded his friend. Joe was sat back on the bed with his hands behind his head, his eyes closed softly. King of his castle. 

“Does me making it up to you include letting you fuck me?” he asked, opening one eye and watching as Jon sucked him into his mouth. He was going to give the best blowjob – dirty and sloppy and deep and Joe would not be able to refuse him after that. 

Jon sucked around the head and then took the whole thing down his throat. He was getting used to the size of Joe’s dick now and had little trouble sucking him off. Every time he did it, he’d bring Joe to orgasm quicker than the time before – and he enjoyed it, knowing Joe was groaning _his_ name, that he was hard because of his mouth and his fingers turned him on. 

Joe’s dick was down his throat when he attempted to run his fingers across his taint and press against his asshole. Last night, during their sex session in Kansas City, he’d fingered Joe for the first time. Joe had been cautious, but had let him do it anyway with no protestation. He’d been tight and had taken a few minutes to relax into it, but Jon had got him off quickly after that, sucking his dick and fingering his ass. Joe had come without warning, right down the back of Jon’s throat and Jon had pulled away, choking, Joe’s semen spilling out of his mouth and over his chin. Jon had wiped his face with the back of his hand, jerking the final few spurts of come out of his friend’s dick and tasting his bitter taste on his tongue, jerking his own cock hard until he followed suit. 

Tonight, Jon wanted to fuck him, but the way Joe tensed up when he tried to push a finger inside made him wonder if his fantasy was realistically obtainable. He pulled his mouth off of Joe’s dick and knocked his knees apart with his own. 

“I know I can get you off,” he said to the man below him, his finger stroking over Joe’s taint, the tip pressing gently against his hole. “Doesn’t this turn you on?” he asked, rubbing at his stomach. 

“It does, it’s just…” Joe breathed, his arm covering his eyes. “I don’t do it this way very often. I know you can get me off. I just don’t want to come too soon,” he said, and it sounded like he was making an excuse as he flipped their positions and nuzzled his face into Jon’s shoulder. “I love watching you take my dick. You look so straight and it turns me on because you’re such a fucking little slut for my cock.” 

“Oh my god,” Jon groaned, slapping his arm. “Don’t say it like that!” 

Joe pushed his finger inside of him with little effort and pressed their lips together, grinning. 

“Okay, but… you are. That’s _good_!” he reassured him when Jon shot him a warning glance. “I really like it… really like you,” he said into Jon’s neck, pressing a kiss behind his jaw. “Come on, it looks like you’re gagging for it.” 

Jon wondered if he’d imagined it. _Really like you…_? Had he said that? It had been so quiet he could easily of misheard him. Jon twisted around on Joe’s finger, which was stroking against his prostate. Joe sat up between his legs and Jon pulled his knees up to his chest. He aligned his dick against Jon’s entrance and pushed into him slowly, a few inches at a time before pulling out and then pushing further back in. Within four strokes he was curling his hips up to meet Jon’s prostate and Jon already could feel himself losing focus. 

“I remember the first time we did this,” Joe told him, falling into a steady rhythm. “God, it took me so long just to get fully inside you. Now, you just take it so easily, fuck,” he murmured, more to himself than Jon. 

They fucked. Joe had perfected the move of slow, shallow thrusts with just the tip of his dick before slamming in all the way and when he did that, Jon couldn’t even breathe properly. All he could do was groan to let Joe know he was enjoying it and fucking wanted it and don’t you dare stop… Joe’s deep thrust would always catch him off guard and after ten minutes, he had to warn his friend of his imminent orgasm. 

“You come with me, okay?” Joe told him. Jon had never been fucked this hard in his life before – it was as if his moans were being fucked out of him against their will and _what the…_ he didn’t even think it possible to feel this good. 

“Holy fucking _shit_ …” Jon cursed, gripping on Joe’s shoulders tightly as his orgasm washed over him. Joe groaned as he came inside him. His come warm as Joe pulled out, looking down to watch it run out of his ass. 

“Fuck me,” Joe breathed, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “That’s one for the wank bank. I love going bareback with you, watching my come run out of you like that. Jesus Christ, man, that’s going to be one of the images that flashes before my eyes right before I die,” he sighed, flopping down on the bed next to Jon.

Jon shifted to sit up in bed, feeling sticky between his legs. He reached over for his cigarettes and he and Joe shared two while watching Fox News on mute. Jon had settled into the crook of Joe’s arm and he fell into such a deep and peaceful sleep that he hadn’t noticed that their fingers had linked when Joe nestled down into the bed behind him, their bodies fitting into each other.  


	17. Chapter 17

In Salt Lake City, Joe became very intense. Jon didn’t know if this had anything to do with what they’d talked about on the long drive from Denver – Joe’s abysmal childhood under the ward of an abusive, alcoholic father and the absence of his meth addicted mom – a woman he’d seen only twice since he was four years old. 

Jon was vaguely aware of the issues Joe had with his dad, but he’d never mentioned his mother before and Jon had always figured that she was either dead and Joe didn’t want to talk about it, or she’d left and Joe didn’t want to talk about it. Either way, on the long, dusty road to Salt Lake City, somewhere between Rawlings and Rock Springs, Wyoming Joe had said, “I’ve never even told anyone that before,” and Jon had hummed a response. He didn’t know whether Joe had told him all about his mother because they were stuck in a car in the middle of nowhere, a whole lot of sky and clouds above them and an endless, straight road ahead, or because he trusted him on some level and that they’d passed that point in their relationship where either of them would hold any judgment. 

Joe’s mom had left the family home when he was four. Joe claimed not to remember. No one knew where she’d disappeared, she just took all her clothes one day and packed up and fell off the radar until Joe was ten. During that time, his father looked to alcohol to replace his wife and mother of his son and had taken all his frustrations and shortcomings out on Joe, who he’d sent to school with bruises and black eyes and busted lips and Joe had tried, he’d said, gripping the steering wheel tight between his hands, tried so hard not to piss him off. He got used to the beatings after a while, would go limp on the floor, because if he didn’t put up a fight, his dad got bored a lot quicker and tended to lose interest. 

At ten, his mother had contacted the family, after six years of absence from her young son’s life and demanded to see him. Joe was ecstatic; it was summer, and she was living in Idaho, had been since she left the family, during which time she’d met a guy, not too dissimilar to Joe’s father and started smoking meth. 

“My mom’s a fucking tweaker, dude,” Joe told him and Jon pictured Joe as a clueless little kid, a mom who’d disappeared without so much as a goodbye and an alcoholic father who didn’t love him. 

At ten, he’d been put on a plane to Idaho, thankful to be out of his father’s hair for a few weeks. He’d thought the bruises would go down. His father had broken his arm the previous summer after drinking all day in the sun and he hadn’t wanted a repeat of that. Jon had listened, his heart heavy at Joe’s stories – sad that they weren’t even stories, they were memories. Joe spoke about them as if he was pulling up his words from the dregs of his mind for the first time. 

“I’ve never even told anyone that before,” he said. “I used to tell people my mom was dead. She sent me a birthday card one year, the only birthday card I ever got from her. She sent it two months before my birthday claiming she was sorry it was late. I thought it was weird, I was almost fifteen; hadn’t seen or talked to her since that summer in Idaho and she signed it _from Susan._ Not _love mom… from Susan._ I still think that’s weird.” Joe shook his head, as if that was the one thing that hurt most – not the beatings his dad subjected him to, not even his mom leaving to pursue a life as a meth addict, but her sending him a birthday card, two months early, as if addressed by a stranger. 

“Have you seen her since?” Jon asked, looking out the window. The scenery was the same as it was three hours ago. He grabbed for the packet of cigarettes they were sharing and lit one up for each of them. 

“I saw her when I was eighteen, very briefly. That was ten years ago. I’ve not seen her since. She hits me up every couple of years asking for money; the first time I did it, sent her three hundred dollars which she promised to pay back, but… tweaker talk; she never did.” 

“Wow, dude, I had no idea.” 

Joe shrugged and then faked a yawn, as if to say, _this conversation is over and it really doesn’t matter, anyway. You don’t have to worry about it, because it doesn’t bother me._ It bothered Jon. He wanted to wrap his arms around him and feel his heartbeat and the heat of his body and he wanted to push his hands into his hair, press their lips together and promise him all the things he knew he shouldn’t – not now they were less than nine hours outside of Las Vegas. 

“D’you want me to drive?” Jon asked him, flicking the ash from his cigarette out of the window. 

“I’m good ‘til we get to the next town,” he said and they settled into silence but Jon couldn’t help that tightness enveloping his heart. Poor Joe, he thought and then he thought about his own life – about his mom and dad’s divorce when he was seven and how upset he’d been, but he’d had a good life. His mom loved him with all her heart and she’d been a support throughout his childhood. She must have been a saint, because Jon was a little shit when he was a child and she’d just roll her eyes, mutter something asinine like, _boys will be boys,_ and let him carry on, so long as he wasn’t doing anything dangerous, or getting arrested, which just so happened to be the story of Jon’s late teenage years. 

“You don’t have to feel sorry for me, you know,” Joe spoke up after a few more miles of silence. “I don’t want pity or nothing.” 

“I know-” 

“I don’t see either of them anymore and I turned out alright considering; I’ve got a job, I’ve got a house; friends – and you care about me, that much is obvious,” Joe gave him a look that said; _it’s obvious, don’t argue with me._ “Just because no one told me they loved me as a kid, doesn’t mean I’m not a validated adult, huh?” It was a question, Joe was expecting an answer and Jon’s stomach sank right into his bowels, because that was the saddest thing he’d ever heard anyone say.

Twenty miles out of Rock Springs, Wyoming, he fell in love.

 

* * *

 

It couldn’t be. Jon couldn’t be in love with Joe; a few months ago he’d still been with Patrick, blissfully unaware of his infidelity and suddenly, a few hot fucks and a conversation about Joe’s shitty childhood later and Jon had to forcibly remind himself not to fall in _love_? 

Perhaps he was getting his feelings for Joe confused with those he still had for Patrick. He couldn’t go headlong from one relationship into another because he was still heartbroken and perhaps he was clinging to Joe because Joe was offering him the closest thing to the security and closeness that Patrick had once offered. 

It couldn’t be love, Jon told himself, smoking outside of the motel room in Salt Lake City while Joe showered. Las Vegas was getting closer, which meant so was Joe’s departure date. Soon he was going to fly back to Chicago and Jon would be totally alone, in a new city, six states away from his family and friends – and Joe would go back to fucking Cooper and Patrick and Pete would carry on, probably thankful that he was out of their hair and they wouldn’t have to worry about bumping into him in bars anymore. _Fucking Las Vegas!_ Jon thought, looking up at the sky, a paint box of pinks and blues and purples as the sun set. _What am I fucking doing?_   

Joe had offered him what he’d needed immediately after his breakup with Patrick – rebound sex. The sex was incredible, but it wasn’t the reason he was trying to convince himself that the rolling feeling in his stomach every time he looked at Joe wasn’t love. Joe had always been the one to initiate closeness. What had he said a few nights ago in Kansas City – _if you were staying in Chicago, this would mean so much more._ And what about last night, in bed together in the hotel in Denver? A few words spoken quietly into the nape of Jon’s neck… _I really like it… really like you._ What did all that _mean_? 

Jon shook his head, trying to get rid of the thoughts that plagued him. This evening Utah was warm and the sky was beautiful and Joe was in the shower, naked and bare, but not as naked and bare as he’d been in the car today, telling Jon about his careless parents who’d never once told him they loved him. 

Jon couldn’t understand it. How could that man, his friend, the man who managed to fuck him into submission time and time again have come from a family like that? He watched another car pull into the parking space next to his and a young family got out, a smiling mother and tired looking father rounding their cute red headed kids up out of the car, toting bags on their shoulders and smiles on their young faces - the father, probably no older than Jon nodded at him as they passed and Jon smiled amiably but didn’t say anything. The family crowded into the room next to theirs and Jon stubbed his cigarette out on the wall and disappeared into the dark motel room. 

Joe was still in the shower, Jon paused outside the door, wrapping his fingers around the doorknob. He waited a second before twisting it, but the door wasn’t locked. He stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. The mirror was clouded with condensation, the small, unventilated bathroom felt like a sauna. 

Joe’s head popped around the shower curtain, his hair lathered up with shampoo and Jon smiled, because he couldn’t help himself, his stomach dropping, his heart contracting – all those things he used to feel when he first met Patrick – but not love, he reminded himself, watching the suds from Joe’s hair slide down the back of his neck. _Lust_ , he told himself, _a stupid infatuation._  

“I’m almost done,” Joe called, ducking back behind the shower curtain. Jon wanted to slide in there with him, press their wet bodies together and get him hard. It’d be easy. He wanted to jerk him off under the hot shower, slip his fingers between his cheeks. He’d get down on his knees in the bathtub and motion for Joe to bend over and he’d lick his asshole, fuck it with his tongue until Joe was begging him to fuck him, because that’s what he wanted – more than anything else right now – he wanted to fuck Joe Trohman before they got to Las Vegas. 

Jon popped the button on his pants and unzipped his fly, pushing his jeans down and off around his ankles. His dick was hard. He pulled his t-shirt over his head and stepped into the shower behind his friend. 

“Oh, hello, mister,” Joe murmured, turning around, his eyes immediately falling to Jon’s semi-hard dick. His wet fingers came down to brush against the underside, scissoring around the base and pressing it against his stomach. Jon shivered, stepping closer to Joe and dipping his head under the shower stream. 

Joe’s hand fell away from his dick and hooked under Jon’s chin, lifting his head up so their eyes met. Jon wanted to say it then. _I love you._ He could have – it was the right moment. It would have been easy. Jon had to bite his lip. 

He wrapped his arm low around Joe’s middle, pulling their bodies together and Joe pushed against him, his tattooed arms sliding down Jon’s back, the water from the shower against the back of Joe’s head. Jon blinked against the droplets that sprayed into his eyes. 

“You okay?” Joe asked, quietly. “You’ve been quiet all afternoon.” 

“Mmm,” Jon hummed, closing his eyes as Joe tipped his head back and kissed him, lips wet and tasteless from the shower. Jon kissed him back, his hands holding the back of Joe’s head, his hair wet and flat under his palms, the ends separated into damp curls around his jawline. They pulled apart and as a distraction from the stupid words which were threatening to spill out of his mouth, Jon let his hand slip down Joe’s back and around his ass, cautiously letting a finger run down the crack. 

Joe didn’t pull away, nor did he offer much of a reaction. Jon would have been leaning into it by now, head tipped back, eyes closed, eager for Joe’s touch. 

“Can I fuck you tonight?” Jon asked. This was the fourth time he’d asked and he didn’t want to sound like he was begging, but Joe was mightily frustrating and elusive about the whole thing. Jon would rather he just put his foot down and say no, instead of stringing him along pretending that he wanted it, just never when Jon asked. 

“We’ll see,” Joe answered and he leant forward to kiss Jon’s nose. “Why don’t you stop teasing me with those fingers though…” he whispered, his breath falling on Jon’s lips. “Push ‘em in me.” 

Jon’s stomach dropped. He didn’t have to be asked twice, he pressed his middle finger between Joe’s ass cheeks and heard him inhale slowly. Joe leant into him, giving him easier access and dropped his head against his shoulder. Jon felt him exhale when he pushed forward into his ass and he turned his face to press a kiss against Joe’s head. 

“Turn around,” he said and Joe pulled lazily back, twisting the showerhead to the side before supporting his body on the tiled surface of the wall with his hands. Jon moved behind him, running his hands over his ass and parting his cheeks. He pushed his middle finger back inside him down to the knuckle and then out. 

Joe was always so quick to locate Jon’s prostate, and Jon didn’t want to disappoint. He curled his finger down towards his balls and found it eventually, and Joe’s body tensed but the angle was wrong and the water was getting cold. Jon pulled his finger from his ass. 

“D’you want to dry off? Get into bed?” he asked and Joe shivered and stood up straight, before turning off the shower. He looked really fucking attractive right now and Jon followed him out, wrapping a towel around his waist. Joe was pulling their bodies close, crushing their lips together and pushing his tongue forward into his mouth. Jon sighed into the kiss, his hands winding around the back of Joe’s neck as their towels fell off and their cocks grew hard against each other. 

“Let’s get to the bed. I want you,” Joe moaned. He pushed Jon up against the bathroom door, his knee between his bare legs, his hand struggling to find the doorknob and twist it open. They fell to the bed together. The motel was the cheapest they could find, just outside of Salt Lake City. The bed was hard, the comforter stiff and rough on Jon’s skin – and he was on his back again, lying underneath Joe and he was arching up into his body, desperate for contact, parting his legs, lifting his ass up and groaning, moaning, cursing when Joe’s fingers slipped between his legs and against his asshole. 

He shouldn’t have pulled out, shouldn’t have worried so much about the off angle of his finger in Joe’s ass. He should have dropped to his knees behind him, rimmed him and made him come. Instead, he was moaning into Joe’s shoulder again, grinding his hips and acting like a fucking whore for his dick. 

It hadn’t taken much. Joe knew what to do to shut him up. 

“You want to fuck me, huh?” Joe teased, his fingers roughly fucking Jon’s ass. Jon nodded feverishly and Joe massaged his prostate. “Not right now.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I said so.” 

 _But no, seriously. Why?_

“That’s not an answer,” Jon sighed, as Joe pulled his fingers out of him and wiped them on the comforter. He got up off the bed, leaving Jon spread open and frustrated, his semi erection against his stomach and Jon watched him pull his jeans on and zip them up. “Is there some kind of reason why?” he asked, closing his legs and suddenly feeling naked in the middle of the bed. 

“No. Just –” Joe opened his mouth as if he was going to say something and then turned his back on him, pulling a t-shirt over his head, his hair still damp, leaving a dark patch around the neck. “Can’t a boy hold out for the right moment?” Joe laughed. Jon sighed and blinked up at the ceiling - white paint, speckled with mold. 

“This is the right moment,” he said. 

Joe threw him a deprecating look. “No, it’s not,” he said, turning back to look at his reflection in the mirror on the wall. “Put some clothes on, let’s go out for dinner.” 

“Is that what you want? Dinner and romance and soft lighting?” It was half mocking, mostly serious. Jon pushed himself up from the bed and pulled a clean pair of boxer shorts on. “I can go down that road if you want me to,” Jon said, but Joe had plugged in the hairdryer and either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him. 

Jon dressed and waited outside. The sun had gone down and the night had grown cold. 


	18. Chapter 18

It had all happened very quickly. Joe had stopped making excuses after his fifth beer back at the motel and between their sixth and seventh bottle of Sierra Nevada, Jon had given him a blowjob, letting Joe ride to the back of his throat and fuck his mouth. Joe had been rough, both of them horny and slightly drunk, and he’d held Jon’s head in position with both hands, feeling the tight vice of Jon’s throat envelope his dick. 

Jon pulled off before Joe came, crawling between his legs and kissing the tattoo on his stomach. He wanted to fuck him so badly that it was driving him insane. That’s all he could think about. 

“God, you’re such a pricktease,” Joe told him, recovering from the edge of orgasm as Jon pressed kisses up his body, around his nipples and up into his neck. He sucked the skin there and Joe’s breathing hitched in his chest. 

“You too.” Jon bit Joe’s earlobe between his teeth and Joe moaned, his hips bucking up to meet Jon’s. “I really want to fuck you,” he told him, punctuating each word with a kiss along his jaw, Joe’s almost week old stubble rough against his lips. 

“Maybe. Maybe we should wait.” 

“I’ll be gentle with you,” Jon assured, his mouth sucking at Joe’s neck. His hand slid down his body, wrapping his palm around Joe’s dick to keep him hard. “Promise.” 

“That’s the thing – I won’t want you to be gentle,” Joe sighed, his back arching up off the mattress, pushing his dick further into Jon’s hand. “I like it rough.” 

“Well,” Jon breathed, his lips puckering again Joe’s chest, down to his stomach and across to his left hipbone. “You should have just said.” 

“If you fuck me you’ll be part of a very exclusive club – all but one other member.” He laughed, but it was dry and forced. Jon smiled against Joe’s thigh and then ran his tongue up the underside of Joe’s dick again. 

Throughout Joe’s protestations and excuses, Jon’s mind had boggled with possibilities as to why Joe was avoiding getting fucked. His theories at first had centered around the control Joe liked to take in the bedroom – that he was naturally dominant in their relationship and he obviously knew how to fuck well. Perhaps Joe just wasn’t used to letting someone else take charge, pin him down and fuck. That’s what he’d thought at first, that it was merely a preference thing. 

Then Jon wondered if Joe perhaps really did want his first time getting fucked by him to be special – his mind had run away with him on that one. He kept claiming that he wanted to wait, that they’d do it some other time and after all Joe’s hints about how fond he was of him, he tried not to let that fantasy play too much on his mind – after all, Joe was the guy who’d offered him poppers and tried to fuck him three days after Patrick had dumped him. Joe didn’t strike him as someone who really favored waiting for that one special moment, but _maybe_ , Jon had thought wistfully. Maybe it all meant that much to him. Maybe he wanted it to mean something – romance and soft lighting, Jon recalled, his mouth sucking at the head of Joe’s dick. 

“You’re seriously going to make me come if you do that for much longer,” Joe informed him, his head back on the pillow, his eyes closed. Jon pulled off and leaned over his body to catch his lips. “I didn’t say stop,” he mumbled against Jon’s mouth, his smile lazy and his eyes heavy from the joint they’d shared outside between their forth and fifth bottle of beer. 

“It’s nothing – you know that right?” Joe’s hand came up to hold Jon’s cheek, his thumb dragging under his chin. “I mean, it’s nothing to do with what I told you today – about my parents. The reason, I mean. I… the reason I’ve been so elusive about – you know, the whole letting you fuck me thing. I don’t want you thinking it has anything to do with that – I wasn’t,” Joe mumbled and then sighed in frustration. Jon leant his head against Joe’s shoulder and kissed the skin. 

And that had been his latest theory – the one he least wanted to believe; that Joe had suffered some kind of awful sexual abuse when he was a kid; that his father had raped him or he’d been abused by a neighbor and it had left him unable to enjoy sexual intercourse as a consenting adult. 

“What’s the reason then?” Jon asked, he pressed a kiss to Joe’s cheek and turned his nose to smell his hair. The reality that their days together like this were numbered made his heart sink in his chest. 

“Because I like you,” Joe said after a pause. “And it probably sounds really gay, but I kind of wanted it to mean something and I know as soon as I give in to you,” he continued, poking Jon’s ribs, “that I’m probably going to fall in love with you and you’re moving and it’s the least ideal situation ever, but – that’s the reason.” Joe turned away from him on the bed and pulled the sheets up to his chin. 

Jon’s mind was in a spin; for a few moments he couldn’t formulate any words. He pulled Joe’s shoulder back down against the mattress. Instead of admitting he probably loved him too, he said, “I had no idea you were such a romantic.” 

Joe raised his eyebrows and gave a small half smile. “Well, what do you expect? We’ve done the whole dating thing backwards – usually you sleep with someone and then, if it’s worth it, get to know them. We already had the friendship thing down – and then we started fucking, so.” 

Jon smiled, pushing his hand into Joe’s curls and letting his eyes gaze over his face. “It’s not because you think I’m probably a crappy screw and that’s the reason Patrick left me?” 

“No,” Joe sighed, his arm pulling Jon into his chest. “I _know_ you’re not a crappy screw, fucking hell – you’re one of the best lays I’ve ever had, trust me. Probably _the_ best. Definitely the best.” Joe kissed the top of Jon’s head. “I like you – probably too much for my own fucking good, man and fuck – if you were staying in Chicago, I’d have asked you to be some sort of official – and I’ve never been official with anyone, so if you can’t figure out how I feel about you after that, then god help you.” 

Jon laughed softly, stroking his palm slowly down Joe’s chest. It would have been the perfect moment to say it, but he kept silent, enjoying the warmth of Joe’s words, the embrace of his tattooed arms around his shoulders. 

“That, and the fact that I’ve only ever let one other guy go there before, so I’m hardly a practiced bottom. Also,” Joe continued after a pause, “that was when I was eighteen and now I’m almost twenty-fucking-nine and for me, that was always going to be the most intimate I’d ever get with a guy – letting them fuck me. I wanted to know, you know? That it meant something, that I could trust them. If someone would have told me at the start of the year that I’d be hooking up with you, I’d never have believed them.” 

“Well. Me neither,” Jon concluded, the effects of the weed and the beers and the comfort of Joe’s words making him suddenly sleepy. “Joseph Trohman, the hopeless romantic, who’d’ve thunk it?” he smiled, closing his eyes. 

“Hey, steady waters run deep,” he replied, kissing the top of Jon’s head again. “But uh, I’ve got a serious case of blue balls right now, so…” 

Jon cracked his eyes open and laughed. He felt Joe’s fingers slide between his ass cheeks.

 

* * *

 

It was the next day and somehow, Jon and Joe had fallen into an oddly comfortable routine with each other. It was as if Joe’s admittance last night had cleared the slate. Jon certainly knew where he stood with Joe, and last night, during sex, Jon had pressed his mouth to Joe’s ear and soothed, “I totally feel the same, by the way. You’re fucking incredible,” and Joe had groaned and come inside Jon’s ass and they’d come down from their dizzy high together without too many more words, but plenty of gentle kisses. 

When they woke up, things were easy again. They’d driven out to the Great Salt Lake – Joe had been going on about it since St. Louis and Jon had felt suitably unimpressed, because all it was, was a giant lake surrounded by mountains, and Lake Michigan, backed by the Chicago skyline was more impressive than this. Joe held his hand as they sat on the shore and watched the ripples on the water and told him how he’d spent one of his best summer’s as a kid out here in Utah, camping out by the Lake. 

Jon had listened to Joe’s story as they shared a surreptitious joint and was thankful that there had been at least some happiness in Joe’s otherwise bleak childhood. 

When he’d visited his estranged mother in Idaho, she’d actually had little to do with him. She was only a year into her meth addiction and hadn’t yet gained the dead, soulless look of a tweaker yet, Joe claimed, but had, on numerous occasions, forgone the opportunity to hang out with him in favor of sitting in her bedroom, with her boyfriend at the time to smoke crank. A week after he arrived, his mother’s boyfriend’s sister had turned up with her husband and kids and had offered to take Joe camping with them for a couple of weeks. _This house is no place for a child, Susan_ she had claimed and Joe had pretended not to hear when his mother replied, “Why d’you think I’ve not seen him in six years? He’ll be gone back to his dad soon.” He’d also pretended not to hear the boyfriend’s remark that his departure couldn’t come soon enough – and he definitely ignored his mother’s laugh that followed. 

So he’d been bundled up in the car with those strangers, an obviously normal and happy family. His mom’s boyfriend’s sister’s name was Kimberly, her husband was Paul and they held down good jobs, loved their children, bought them ice creams and at night, around the campfire Joe found himself curling up next to Kimberly and she would stroke his hair and kiss his head before bed and Joe said it had been the happiest he’d ever been as a kid. 

“That’s why I wanted to bring you out all the way out here, because I had like, the only fucking good two weeks of my childhood out here. I guess I wanted to share that with you,” Joe sighed, taking a hit off the joint and pulling Jon close to his side. “I was hoping we could camp out for a couple nights, but I guess we left that too late.” Joe handed the joint over, but Jon refused – he was already pretty stoned and he had to drive back to the motel. Joe extinguished the joint and slipped it into his cigarette packet. 

“We should go back to the motel room,” Jon suggested, moving to stand up. He offered his hand out to Joe and pulled him up, their eyes holding each other’s gaze as Joe planted his feet. 

“Wow. You’re handsome,” Joe noted, looking down at Jon’s eyes. “I uh, I –” he trailed off, obviously unsure how to continue. “I think I might, umm… never mind. Let’s go back to the motel. You good to drive?” 

“Yeah,” Jon replied, “let’s go.” 

They walked back to the car and when they got settled, Joe’s hand snaked around the back of Jon’s neck, pulling him in for a slow, heavy kiss which eventually turned into something way more desperate and needy. Jon was almost out of the driver’s seat, on top of Joe by the time they broke apart. Jon pulled back and wiped his mouth, sitting back down in his seat as he started the ignition. They didn’t say anything else to each other on the drive back to the motel, but once they pushed into the room together, the words came quickly, breathed out in a rush of disappearing clothes and wet kisses, always avoiding the L-Word, but Jon was desperate to say it. He was even more desperate to hear it. 

“I want to fuck you. It means everything to me, I swear,” Jon’s voice left his mouth in a rush, as they fell to the bed together. It was much to his surprise that Joe’s reply came so quickly. 

“Okay,” Joe breathed, his hand coming to a soft rest at the back of Jon’s neck. “Just – go easy on me. It’s been a long time.” 

“How long?” Jon asked, sucking Joe’s earlobe again, nipping down on it. 

“You know how long. I told you. Close to eleven years, man.” Jon’s mouth sucked at his friend’s left nipple. “God, it’s like…” Joe trailed off, his words lost to the heat of the stuffy motel room. Jon’s finger brushed against his taint and around his tight hole, back and forth until Joe rocked his hips up into him. 

“Get up on your hands and knees, I’ll eat you out,” Jon told him, his voice rough with longing and desire; his heart beating hard in his chest and his dick stiffening between his legs. Joe moved slowly onto his stomach, raising his body up and burying his head in the pillow. 

Jon moved behind him, his hands snaking over Joe’s ass before pulling his cheeks apart and lowering his head between them. He pushed his mouth against him, snaking his tongue out and drawing it up along his taint and over his asshole. Joe’s whole body jerked and within a few seconds, the man in front of him was sporting a rock hard erection between his legs, the tip leaking slightly as Jon pulled back to spit between his cheeks and rub his index finger in gentle circles around his ring of muscle. 

He licked slowly, his eyes closed, both his hands pulling Joe’s cheeks apart and then he pushed forward with his tongue, the tip penetrating just enough for Joe’s body to shake underneath him. He flicked his tongue quickly over his asshole, and Joe’s body pushed back against his face. Jon palmed his balls, moving his hand up around the thick shaft of his dick and began jerking him. Joe’s dick turned him on, feeling it in his hand made him think about the first time they’d attempted sex – a few days after Patrick broke up with him, the night he’d passed out on poppers – Joe’s dick had felt so different back then, so big and heavy and just fucking glorious. He wrapped his palm tighter around his friend’s erection, his thumb rubbing the slit. Joe seemed appreciative enough, by the sound of his groans. 

“How do you want me to fuck you?” Joe had been kind enough to ask the same question the first time he fucked him, so Jon thought it only polite. He sat up, jerking his own dick a few times for good measure and reaching over Joe’s body for the lube on the nightstand. 

“Like this,” came Joe’s muffled reply from the pillows. “On all fours. No need for a condom,” he said, his hands fisting in the sheets. Jon wanted to be sure his friend wanted this – that he wasn’t just agreeing to his selfish desire to shut him up. Jon coated two fingers with lube and inserted one of them with reasonable ease. Joe pushed back against him. Jon wanted him begging before he was through with him. 

Once his second finger was in, Joe relaxed a little, his legs outside of Jon’s knees on the bed. Jon hooked his fingers, located Joe’s prostate and rubbed it. Joe thrust backwards, forcing Jon’s digits deeper and made a gentle grab for his dick. 

“I’m ready,” Joe told him, his head turned to the side and his eyes closed. “You can fuck me.” 

“You want this?” Jon asked, removing his fingers and holding his dick in his hand, he pressed the tip against Joe’s asshole and pressed against it. 

“Yes. Fuck. Yes I do, just… _oh fuck…_ ” Joe moaned dirtily – _moaned –_ into the pillow and fuck, was he tight. Jon had to hold still just to get used to the sensation. Joe was tighter than Patrick; but that was probably because Pete had kept him stretched out. He shook the thought from his head, gripping onto Joe’s hips for a few more moments before picking up the pace. 

“Good fucking god, your ass is so fucking tight,” Jon told him, thrusting slowly – he was going to come so quick that after a minute, he had to stall again inside him – it was almost fucking painful. 

“Oh my god, it’s been so long,” Joe sighed, his back arching. Jon’s balls tightened and he pushed forward again, one hand sliding up Joe’s spine to grip onto his shoulder for leverage. “I’d never let just anyone do this,” he laughed and Jon bit his lip, pushing his fingers into the back of Joe’s hair. “Pull it,” Joe told him after a few seconds, so he did, twisting Joe’s thick curls around his fingers and yanking on them as he thrust inside him. 

Joe cursed, his asshole tightening around Jon’s dick. Jon dropped his head back. He had to concentrate so hard on not spilling his load. Joe felt fucking incredible. 

“Harder.” Joe’s voice caught his attention, his hands had gone slack in his hair and Jon pushed his face down into the pillow, taking a strong pull at his hair again. 

“You like getting fucked and having your hair pulled,” Jon noted, “fuck…” He jerked into him, his dick against Joe’s prostate – and _goddamn it,_ he didn’t know how he’d last much longer to get Joe off properly. He vaguely remembered the start of their conversation last night; when Jon had been trying to convince Joe to let him fuck him by saying he’d be gentle. Joe had said he wouldn’t want him to be gentle. He liked it rough – those had been his words. Jon’s insides twisted and he pumped his dick in and out until he felt dangerously close to coming. “ _Fuck, Joe_ …” he almost whined, trying to delay his orgasm. 

“Here, let’s…” Joe pulled his body forward and Jon’s dick slipped out of him. Jon groaned and watched through heavy lidded eyes as Joe flipped over onto his back. “Sit on my dick,” he ordered crudely and Jon shook his head. 

“I’m not prepped. I want to get you off. Please,” he moaned. “Please let me fuck you, you’re so tight, you’re fucking driving me crazy.” 

“We’ll switch it up a bit, come on.” Joe’s fingers were already slicked up with lubricant. He pulled Jon into his chest and pressed two fingers inside him. _Fucking prick,_ Jon wanted to curse. _Fucking, fucking prick,_ because his muscles were turning slack under Joe’s touch and he knew that soon he was just going to fall apart in his friend’s arms and he’d end up getting fucked with Joe’s load up his ass again. “You were too close to coming, I could tell. Come on; sit on my dick. You can finish off in my ass, let’s just…” Jon had already pushed himself down on top of Joe’s cock, settling into a slow rhythm, while Joe gripped his hips. “Good boy,” Joe mumbled appreciatively when they resumed their fucking. 

Jon hadn’t done this before – when he was with Patrick, it was almost always him who topped. On the rare occasion that Patrick fucked him, they never switched it up like this – Jon wondered why that had never happened. His head dropped back, exposing his neck and Joe pulled him in, their lips pressing together. 

“Let me tell you something,” Joe whispered into his ear, his breath hot and heavy on Jon’s skin. “I fucking wish you were staying in Chicago. _Fuck_ ,” he sighed when Jon rocked his hips forward. “God, I’d make you so happy.” Joe closed his eyes and Jon’s heart started to thump hard in his chest at his words. 

He fucked himself on Joe’s dick and pulled off a few minutes later, making a grab for Joe’s thighs and pushing them up against his chest. He pushed the head of his dick past the tightness of his asshole and fell quickly into a fast rhythm. 

Jon didn’t know why those three words he’d been thinking about since yesterday afternoon kept dancing on the tip of his tongue - maybe because he was suddenly in familiar territory now – his dick inside of someone hard and compliant. When he fucked Patrick he’d always say it – every time. _I love you, I love you, I love you._ He bit the inside of his lip to stop the words falling out accidentally, because he didn’t love Joe, but he really fucking did. _God, I’d make you so happy._ Joe’s words from a few minutes earlier haunted him and he leant forward against his lips, his tongue pushing greedily inside his mouth. Beer and nicotine. As they deepened the kiss, Jon felt the familiar white heat pricking his toes. 

“I’m so fucking close…” he warned Joe, and made a grab for his hand, their fingers twisting together, Jon’s face buried in the nape of Joe’s neck, Joe’s big dick pressed between their stomachs. “Fuck, oh my _god_.” He could feel it building inside his balls, that huge wave crashing down inside his bowels and he was riding it, lost in his own pleasure, in the touch and the heat of Joe’s sex-flushed body and everything else shut down – nothing existed past himself and Joe and the bed they were on. Nothing else. White noise flooded his ears and before he expected it, Joe’s dick spilled out his load and his body was stiff and his eyes were blue behind heavy lids and Jon had to remember to breathe. 

He came a few moments later, inside Joe’s ass, his orgasm rushing over him and leaving the end of his dick for what seemed like an infinite amount of time. His body fell on top of Joe’s as he attempted to recover – perfect, blissful orgasms every single time. Joe was breathing heavy underneath him, his arms limp by his side. Jon went to pull out, but Joe’s legs wrapped gently around him. 

“Let’s just come down together,” he said, his words dizzy with emotion. Jon felt Joe’s asshole pulsing around him and blinked the world around them back into focus – still the same shitty motel room a few miles out of the center of Salt Lake City; still the same stiff bed sheets and flat pillows and stained carpet; still just him and Joe, those same three fucking words rattling around in his mind, pulling at his tongue. 

“That was fucking incredible,” Joe said, sighing, his hand petting down the hair at the back of Jon’s head. Jon pulled out, darting his eyes down to where his come seeped out of Joe’s ass. _Fuck._

His stomach was slicked in Joe’s come, his dick sticky with lube and he leant forward to kiss Joe’s lips. Joe answered with a hungry make-out, his tongue sliding across Jon’s forcefully. Jon caught Joe’s bottom lip between his teeth and pulled back, biting down gently before letting it go. 

“I keep thinking about when we get to Vegas and I’ll have to go back home and we won’t be able to do this anymore.” 

“Don’t think about it,” Jon told Joe, as if it was that easy. Jon had been thinking the same thing since Springfield, Illinois. 

“Wanna finish off the joint?” Joe asked, climbing off the bed. 

“Yeah. Light ‘em up.” 

He watched Joe hobble towards the desk in the corner. “Jesus, you came loads. I can feel it pouring out of me,” he commented. “Another beer, too?” 

“Yeah,” Jon smiled. “Another beer sounds great right now.”

 Joe had been right back there; he could make Jon happy. 


	19. Chapter 19

It was 4PM on Friday afternoon when Jon and Joe rolled into Las Vegas. They’d spent three nights in Salt Lake City and it’d been a week since they left Chicago, but their nights holed up in the motel had made their extended stay worthwhile. 

Joe had let Jon fuck him again – several times during their time in Salt Lake City and Jon seemed to have unleashed Joe’s kinky side. 

“Pain and humiliation are not mutually exclusive,” Joe told him one morning over bacon and eggs at a quaint little café in the city. “It’s not like I want to be humiliated, because I don’t… just…” Joe raised his eyebrows and looked down into his breakfast, pushing his eggs around his plate. “A little pain though,” he continued, not looking up. “That gets me off.”  

So, Jon had done his best, treading the line between pain without humiliation and he’d had Joe coming over his hand as he pulled at his hair and dug his teeth into his shoulder while he fucked him. Jon would lose himself to the sighs and moans and he’d find it so hard to keep his mouth closed when he rode to orgasm inside Joe’s ass. 

They’d lay together afterwards, until they both came down and they’d smoke and nap and when Joe would press their bodies together, Jon wouldn’t pull away. They’d fall asleep like that, back-to-chest and eventually fall apart in the night, but Jon found himself seeking his friends sleep-warm body out in the darkness of the motel room, a comfort when Joe let him, a relief when their fingers wound together and Joe’s cock grew hard. 

Arriving in Las Vegas was bittersweet. It had taken them five days longer than Jon first planned, back in Joe’s living room in Chicago and although after a week on the road, eating junk food and sleeping in cheap motels, he was glad to finally be arriving in his strange new city, at the back of his mind he couldn’t ignore the fact that he had only two more nights with Joe before he flew back home and Jon would have to make an effort to fit in at a new school, meet new friends and more importantly, find another place to rent, because no matter how many times Jon checked the address he’d written down with the street name and number on the apartment wall, it didn’t change. 

“This place is a fucking shithole,” Joe told him, leaning up against the passenger side door as he brought his cigarette to his mouth. Jon had been rash in finding a place to live, had found the area with the cheapest rent in Las Vegas and called up the owner, asking if they had a unit available. 

The area was a few miles off Las Vegas Boulevard, but it could well have been any of those small, forgotten towns they drove past on the long road from Denver to Salt Lake City. The streets were quiet, graffiti covered the majority of shop fronts and, Joe had pointed out, as they drove further away from the lights and five star hotels on the Strip, most of the houses had bars over the windows. Even the churches that were located every couple of blocks had bars covering the windows and doors.  

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Joe told him. “You never just agree to rent the cheapest place.” 

“I need to save money, man. Besides, it’s a month to month rental.” He looked up at the small, one bedroomed unit he’d agreed to move into and it was like the Twilight Zone - a few miles ago they'd both been enthralled by the buzz and the lights of South Las Vegas Boulevard. They seemed to have stepped into another world. A police siren sounded a few blocks away and he looked back at Joe for support. “It’s not going to be forever.” 

“Dude, look at all this glass on the sidewalk. Your car’s going to get broken into with that out of state license plate. You’re gonna get mugged or something.” 

“Jesus, Joe,” Jon snapped. “A little support here would be nice. It’s probably not that bad and I keep myself to myself, I mean…” he looked up and down the street, to his right he could see the tip of The Stratosphere Tower; then he thought he heard gunshots coming from the direction of the police sirens, but it was probably just an engine backfiring or firecrackers or something lame and innocent. He looked back at Joe, his confidence suddenly deserting him. 

“You’ll be fine, you know, if you sleep with one eye open and a gun under your pillow,” Joe remarked, pushing himself up off the car and dropping his cigarette butt to the sidewalk.  “How much did you say you were paying for this place?” 

“Two fifty a month.” 

Joe whistled and shook his head as he kicked some of the smashed glass off the sidewalk and into the gutter. “They should be paying you to live in this dump. Fuck me, it’s good Patrick not here to see you now.” 

Jon stopped, looking back at his friend as he felt his heart clamp up. “What does that have to do with anything?” he bit, glaring at Joe. “You think I care what Patrick thinks now? He won’t be able to afford that place without me, anyway and why are you even bringing him up?” 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Joe defended himself weakly, looking up at him. Jon’s lips pressed into a thin line and he folded his arms. His eyes glanced over the block of apartments he would soon call home, an off-cream, L-shaped building with rusted orange stairs up to the second floor.  _We accept Section 8,_ claimed the notice stuck to the wall of the building. _No credit check! $199 p/m MOVE IN SPECIAL._ And wait - why was Jon paying two fifty? 

“Plus your OCD will probably go off the charts once we get inside. If this is what it looks like from the outside, well…” Joe noted. 

Jon sighed. “I do _not_ have OCD.” 

“Yeah. Okay. Jon, you make the bed in motel rooms. I’ve never seen anyone do that before.” 

“I was perfect househusband material a few weeks ago,” he pointed out, nodding a greeting to a black neighbor who was smoking outside of his front door, wearing a wife-beater and saggy pants, eyeing Jon and then Joe up conspicuously. “Come on, help me get my stuff inside.” The late afternoon Las Vegas air was muggy and heavy, the sun blocked behind the clouds. It took them two trips between the two of them to clear Jon’s car of his stuff – mainly clothes, a few records that he thought were important enough – he felt like he was leaving home for the first time, he was going to have to start completely afresh. 

Joe kept looking out the window, throught the bars, shaking his head, but eventually he rallied himself up enough to lie that it wasn’t all that bad – at least the carpet in the living area looked new and the bathroom was clean. Jon looked around his sparse new apartment and thought back to the place he’d been sharing with Patrick until a few months back. This was a big step down, but he figured it was only for a month or two – only until he got a few paychecks behind him and managed to find a nicer place. He could look after himself and he was pretty inconspicuous, he tended to blend into the background a lot anyway, so he paid Joe’s complaints no mind.

That night Jon tried to forget his housing situation while he and Joe gambled on the Strip. Jon couldn’t quite get over how strange Las Vegas Boulevard was – he didn't even feel like he was in a real city, it felt like some kind of Disney World, some outlaw town where he could drink on the streets and smoke inside. It was pretty cool actually, just walking in and out of casinos with a strongly poured whiskey in his hand. They set up at a Black Jack table at Bill's Gamblin' Hall - one of the few casinos on The Strip that had $5 tables. An hour later and he walked away fifty dollars up. Joe walked away two hundred and seventy down and had lost quite absymally to a cowboy from Texas who'd flicked him a $10 chip in pity and told him to brush up on his strategy.  

“That’s my months rent,” Jon told him, nudging his elbow into him as Joe moped about his loss, sat on a wall outside The Paris Casino. Joe laughed and looked at him, his hand coming up to trail through the back of Jon’s hair. 

“I’m going to miss you,” Joe said, his hand falling down Jon’s back and then returning to his lap. “I wasn’t expecting this when we first hooked up and now look…” Joe trailed off, looking down at his feet.  _Yeah. Now Look,_ Jon thought, sighing quietly.

“Well, we’ll keep in touch,” Jon told him. He took a deep breath. “You’ve been great. You know, since Patrick and I… broke up. Living with Bill would’ve driven me crazy after about a week.” The deep breath had been futile. He’d wanted to say so much more. 

“Well. You know. It’d be… kinda. It’s cool though, right, you and me? It’s uh…” 

“Yeah,” Jon agreed, to whatever Joe was trying hard to say. “It’s cool.” They both fell quiet, watching the tourists scuttle down the Strip with glasses and bottles in their hands, the warm night air with breeze enough that it blew Joe’s hair off his face, _just so._  

“We’ve only got two more nights together. We should be locked in a room somewhere, fucking,” Joe noted and his hand came to a firm rest on Jon’s knee. Those three words were constantly on the tip of Jon’s tongue when Joe acted like this. He wondered how easy it’d be just to tell him, to get it out there before he left for Chicago on Sunday evening, but where would that get him, he wondered. He’d still be tied down to his new job in Las Vegas and Joe wouldn’t suddenly uproot his life to move out to Nevada. 

He didn’t even know whether Joe would say it back and he couldn’t risk that. 

That night, in the unmade bed of Jon’s new apartment, sweating on top of each other, with Joe’s load up his ass, Jon pressed a kiss against the top of Joe’s head. “I like this,” he said. An understatement. 

Joe pulled his dick out his ass and flopped down on the bed next to him. “I’m a good rebound fuck, huh?” he asked sleepily, a smile pulling at his lips. 

“You’re way more than that,” he allowed himself to say, feeling Joe’s semen leak out of him – that always felt so good, but it felt better when Joe would rim him straight after sex and lick him clean. Patrick never would have done that. Maybe he did it for Pete – maybe Patrick sucked Pete’s dick and swallowed Pete’s come and maybe he loved it; he didn’t care anymore. The one thing that bothered him the most was that Patrick had taken him for such a fucking idiot, his actual infidelity was but a small itch under his skin; his self-pity was an open wound, but Joe fixed that with compliments about his cock sucking skills, about how much he turned him on, how hard Jon made him… 

Jon listened to the nighttime noises outside his window; dogs barking, sirens blaring past, the blue lights filling the uncovered window for a second before they were left in darkness again. It was gone 1AM, but Jon could still hear the neighbors shouting to each other about mutual friends they knew, dropping F-bombs and N-bombs and talking so loud, it sounded like they were stood right outside the bedroom door. 

“Come here.” Joe mumbled as he wrapped his arm across Jon’s chest and kissed his shoulder. Jon’s fingers danced across the colorful etchings on Joe’s arms. “You're living in the 'hood, baby,” he chuckled, tightening his grip and pulling Jon down into his chest. 

 _Baby._ That was a new one.   

“You, out of everyone I know deserve to be happy. I know I could be that person; I would make you so fucking happy, Jon, I swear. I’ve seen so much shit in my life that I learnt to recognize when something good is right in front of me – and that’s you. That’s us. Jon – fuck man, I – I really like you.” 

That was an awful lot of words. Jon hummed in response and Joe pulled his face up so that their eyes met. 

“This is good; what we have – it’s great. I think of the future and when I do, I don’t see this – you and me living in separate states, man.” 

“I know,” Jon replied quietly, the wall to their left vibrating the room as the next door neighbor slammed his front door. “We shouldn’t though,” he said, closing his eyes. Joe’s grip on his face loosened. “Saying all this can’t change anything.” 

“You’re still in love with Patrick.” It wasn’t even a question; Joe said it like he was stating a fact. Joe’s hands tucked under his pillow and they were only an inch apart, but it felt like a mile. “God. I never thought I’d be jealous of someone like Patrick Stump, but fuck.” 

“I’m not in love with Patrick,” Jon defended, with his eyes closed and his head dropped forward so that Joe couldn’t read his expression. He wasn’t in love with Patrick; maybe the idea of him, the memory of him, but not with the person he’d turned into. He couldn’t look at Patrick again and not picture him getting fucked by Pete Wentz. “You’ve got nothing to be jealous about.” 

“He had you in all the ways that I _want_ you. You were together and you loved each other and…” Joe ran his finger through the hair behind Jon’s ears. “Maybe it’s too soon, but – that’s what I want.” 

Telling Patrick he loved him hadn’t been this damn complicated; but then, they _had_ fucked around for a year before they offered each other any commitment. Maybe his relationship with Joe was destined to go much the same way. With Patrick the I Love You’s had come so easy, it was like he was on autopilot most of the time. During sex he hadn’t even had to think about it, the words would just come falling out of his mouth and into Patrick’s with so little thought put into them that he hadn’t even noticed when Patrick stopped saying it back.   

Jon pressed his lips to Joe’s, his tongue slipping into his mouth, their dicks caught between their bodies. They made out until they were both hard again, but they didn’t say anything else. Jon’s heart felt like it was going to explode when Joe pushed into him for a second time that night, fucking him from behind on all fours. No lube, no condom, just pure willpower on Jon’s part because he was used to the drag and burn of Joe’s dick by now. 

After a slow session, they both came without too much of an effort. Jon didn’t know what he’d call it – with Patrick it would have been lovemaking. With Joe… just sex; intimate, perfectly slow, satisfying sex. Nothing more. Nothing less, he told himself. 

Joe fell asleep first, leaving Jon awake with his thoughts for company. _You should have just said it,_ he told himself, turning angrily away from Joe on the mattress and blinking at the blank white wall in front of him. _He basically told you himself._ All those words Joe had said, the _baby,_ the _I would make you happy… I really like you._ Joe had basically spelt it out for him and still the words had got knotted in his mouth, because Patrick had ruined him. Patrick had broken his heart and Joe had patched it back up with Band-Aids, but they were coming unstuck and he felt like he shouldn't feel the way he was feeling about Joe. This hadn't been in the contract when they'd first climbed into bed together two months ago. It was always just meant to be sex - comfort sex, rebound sex, convenient sex, call it what you will, but it certainly wasn't meant to be love. It hurt. 

Was it complicated because they were friends, or because he’d not long ago found out his long-term relationship with Patrick was a sham? It had been two months since that bombshell had been dropped and he’d only hooked up with Joe in hopes of pissing Patrick off – because he was there and convenient and willing and Jon had been heartbroken and feeling pathetic at the fact he’d been dumped for someone older and shorter than himself. 

Jon remembered right back to the day on Joe’s couch, while he planned their route from Chicago and how Joe had been behind him, smoking with one hand, the fingers of the other playing over the skin of his back and Jon’s breathing had hitched until all he could concentrate on was his touch and the route on the computer screen started to make less and less sense and soon, the absent fingers on his bare skin hooked into the top of his jeans and it had been hard to just keep his breathing even when Joe pulled him back against him on the couch and mentioned he’d like to spend a night in Salt Lake City – and maybe all those little things added up to a feeling akin of love? Maybe love wasn’t in fact a huge, all-encompassing reaction to someone you couldn’t live without. Maybe it was a puzzle, made up of smaller feelings – the drop of his stomach and the thud of his heart when he and Joe laughed together, the long, straight roads that had led them right here, sharing the unmade bed in Jon’s shitty new apartment in the bad area of north Las Vegas. The comforting hand at the back of his neck when he’d been stood in front of Patrick and Pete at the bar a few weeks ago, Joe’s reaction to Pete’s words, _rebound fuck,_ the secrets of his childhood, Joe’s face right before he comes… His eyes, that hair, those fingers laced with his outside the bar in Denver – maybe all that was love. 

Jon pressed his face into the pillow, but couldn’t fall asleep.

 

* * *

 

It was weird. Jon bit the inside of his lip and watched the people behind Joe at McCarran airport, pulling on slot machines, trying to get the most out of their last half hour in Las Vegas. 

“So.” 

Jon looked up at Joe and sighed. “Safe journey home,” he said and reached his hand out to knock against Joe’s shoulder. 

“Yeah. Come here,” Joe had mumbled, pulling Jon into a close hug – not a friendly hug either, a lovers’ hug; long and tight, Joe’s nose in Jon’s hair, inhaling. “I’m gonna fucking miss you, dude,” he said, still holding tight. Jon’s palms came to a rest on Joe’s shoulder blades, his chin hooked over his shoulder. He glanced warily at a passing bachelor party, before closing his eyes. 

“Me too.” 

He would – he really fucking would miss Joe and his feelings were threatening to spill over dangerously. Jon tried to pull free of Joe’s embrace, but his friend didn’t let go. Instead, he caught his ear with his lips; his kiss loud, his voice hushed, pressed against him. 

“You’ll keep in touch, won’t you?” 

Jon nodded, because he couldn’t really speak. “Of course,” he managed to choke out eventually – and then, “Fuck, Joe, I don’t know what any of this means.” 

Joe clicked his tongue and pulled back from the hug. 

“You gotta do what you’ve gotta do – that’s how it’s always gonna be. I’ll be fine – always am, could get along with life better with you, but…” he shrugged and his hands squeezed Jon’s shoulders and gave him a small shake. “We’re cool. You don’t have to say anything you’re not ready to say yet. I understand. You’re a good guy – a fucking awesome friend,” he continued, resting his forehead against Jon’s. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, man – I really fucking like you and I’m going to miss you and who have I got to hang out with back in Chicago now, huh? Bill and Gabe? They’re always stuck to each others’ sides.” 

Jon smiled. “There’s always Cooper,” he tested and watched Joe’s eyes roll. 

“Fuck Cooper,” he said, pushing a kiss on the tip of Jon’s nose and then nuzzled his neck. “Life’s a funny thing, huh? Cooper loves me, I don’t care for him, I care for _you_ and you’re still hung up on Sir Cheats-a-lot back home and Murphy’s law huh, I’ve spent my entire adult life running away from commitment, breaking hearts and here we are…” he laughed. It was almost bitter. “The one I wanted to keep around – and you’re moving six states away.” 

“Joe…” Jon mumbled. His hands had fisted at the back of Joe’s t-shirt. “Fuck, man.” Jon opened his eyes and blinked up at the lights in the airport ceiling. He pulled back from Joe’s arms and sighed. “I didn’t think that – what with… Patrick and shit and. I didn’t think that this – me and you – would turn into something like _this_ – fuck, dude,” Jon laughed and spotted abruptly. “Maybe we need to see how we feel after a few weeks away from each other.” 

Joe’s smile remained, but his eyes blinked too quickly. “That wasn’t the pearl of wisdom I had been expecting, but, yeah. Maybe we do.” 

“You’re gonna miss your flight,” Jon noted, pointing beyond Joe’s shoulder at the departure screen. 

Joe grabbed his hand and pulled their bodies close again, his hand palming over Jon’s cheek, fingers curled around his neck. Their lips connected, Jon’s mouth opened and Joe’s tongue pushed inside, only for a few seconds before he pulled back, locked his gaze with Jon’s and huffed out a deep sigh. 

Almost every fiber of Jon’s being was wishing, willing, praying Joe would stay just a minute longer. He'd spent the full roadtrip from Chicago dreading this very moment and now he was in it, living it. He’d failed on so many levels and how the hell was he going to cope driving back to his shithole apartment, starting a new job, in a city which was much too hot and way too busy and way too lonely? 

“Look after yourself,” Joe told him. “This is unfair, I can hardly pull away from you,” he smiled, his eyes closing as Jon reconnected their lips again, paying little mind that they were probably gaining a few stares from the travellers passing them by. 

“Call me when you get back home,” Jon told him, speaking the words against Joe’s mouth, finishing them with another kiss. “You’re really going to miss your flight. Go.”

"Maybe I'm trying to miss my flight. Spend an extra night with you," Joe said, his hands flat on the small of Jon's back, pulling them together. Jon laughed and pushed him away and Joe turned to make a start to security but turned back around, pulled him in for another kiss and ran his fingers through the back of his hair. 

“Goddamn, Jon Walker. You’re not making this easy.” 

“Get lost,” Jon laughed, pushing him away again. _Too late now,_ he reasoned. He should have told Joe how he felt last night, during sex, after sex… this morning when they woke up together and Joe kissed his knuckles one by one and they’d engaged in more lazy, Sunday morning sex – Jon on top this time and this morning he felt like he was making love, because it was slow and tender and they came together and it meant something – everything. Love belonged _there_ , caught up in the moment prior to orgasm, not blurted out in an airport as a final goodbye. 

“I’ll call you.” Joe gave a final nod and a paused in front of him. 

“You’d better.” 

“Bye then.” 

“I’ll see ya.” 

“Just one more kiss,” Joe smiled, pressing two, three, four quick kisses onto Jon’s lips. “I’m going to be late.” Another kiss, and another. “I fucking – _fuck_. I’ll see you.” One more kiss and then Joe was walking quickly toward security. He didn’t turn back, but Jon watched him disappear behind the cordoned off barrier of airport security. When he was pretty sure that Joe was probably clear and running to catch the plane, he turned and headed for the exit, stepping out into the ninety-something degree heat that made this particular late Las Vegas afternoon incredibly uncomfortable. 

He returned to his car as an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. 

“Fuck,” he murmured under his breath as he sat in his car and turned all the air-conditioning vents towards him. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. 

 _Missing you already. Love you, man. Xxx_

Jon threw his cellphone down and started the ignition.

 

 

**END OF PART I.**


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